We destroy Villa in the 3rd Round of the Carabao Cup

The 3^rd Round of the Carabao Cup saw us draw 1-1 with Aston Villa at the Gtech, but we went through 4-2 on pens. Andrews handed Arthur his Brentford debut in one of 10 changes to the starting XI from Saturday's 2-2 draw against Chelsea in the Premier League. van den Berg was the only player to start in both games, while Janelt made his first appearance since April having recovered from an issue in his heel. 

Elliott, making his full debut for the Villans, had the first sight on goal inside the opening 90 seconds as his speculative volley was comfortably dealt with by Valdimarsson, before the Liverpool loanee's cross from the left was headed wide by Torres five minutes later. After a strong start from the visitors, Brentford began to see more of the ball and midway through the half Ouattara beat his man on the right wing before his cross was only half-cleared to Henry. The left-back's shot was blocked away by former Bee Konsa. We went even closer a minute later as Janelt sent an inviting corner to the front post, with van den Berg getting in front of two defenders to head goalwards, only for Bizot to acrobatically tip it over the bar. Villa took the lead on 43 minutes. Trying to play out from the back,McGinn robbed Janelt 25 yards out from goal, with the loose ball then falling to Elliott, and his first-time right-footed shot went through the hands and legs of Valdimarsson (who should have saved it, but he made amends later) and into the back of the net.

Villa were inches away from doubling their advantage early after the restart. Guessand was released down the right flank, and he raced to the byline before pulling back across the face of goal and the ball ended up with Sancho who hit the outside of the post from a tight angle. The Bees equalised soon afterwards and, for the second game in succession, it came from a long throw-in. Onyeka sent an arrow towards the six-yard box, which was met by the head of Pau, but it fell nicely to Hickey on the right side of the penalty area and he guided a superb volley into the top-left corner. Another long throw nearly saw the Bees move in front for the first time. This time, Onyeka’s throw was flicked on at the near post by Arthur, but it was clawed away by Bizot from underneath his own crossbar to deny the young centre-back a debut goal. We continued to look a threat from set-pieces. The next, an outswinging Carvalho delivery from the right side, was headed over by Ouattara. It took a smart stop from Valdimarsson to prevent Villa from retaking the lead at the other end as he turned away Cash’s back-post volley following a deep cross from McGinn. Damsgaard looked to mark his landmark 100^th appearance with some trademark magic. Minutes after coming on, he nutmegged Kamara on halfway before finding Carvalho to his left. The Portuguese forward saw a bending effort headed away before the Dane had a go from range himself, firing just over the top corner. Valdimarsson denied a low Rogers effort from the edge of the area in the final minute of stoppage-time to take the tie to penalties.

In the shoot-out, the Icelandic keeper pulled off two impressive saves from well-struck McGinn and Cash penalties, diving to his right to make both stops. Damsgaard obliged with the winning spot-kick to send the Bees into Round Four.