Aston Villa cruise to Barnsley victory, Grealish a 9/10

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BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND – JANUARY 01: Jack Grealish of Aston Villa moves away with the ball during the Sky Bet Championship match between Aston Villa and Bristol City at Villa Park on January 1, 2018 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images) /

Aston Villa cruised to victory in front of a Villa Park crowd. A first-half treble gave the home side another three points in league play. Villa crawled into third-place on goal differential.

Aston Villa defeated a weakened Barnsley side by a score of 3-1 on Saturday afternoon.

Led by Scott Hogan’s early brace, the subliminal efforts of Jack Grealish, and Birkir Bjarnason in a new position, Villa pulled into third-place in the EFL Championship standings. Villa were in dream land early on as Hogan scored seconds apart in the fifth and sixth minutes, respectively.

Ahmed Elmohamady supplied the first goal from a right wing cross. Hogan fired a knee-high ball past Barnsley ‘keeper, Adam Davies. He headed-in another from Robert Snodgrass’ dead ball just seconds later.

Barnsley recovered, however, when 22-year old Dimitri Cavaré capitalized on poor corner kick defending to make it 2-1.

Conor Hourihane nailed the victory with a cool left-footed finish to recover the two goal lead. Below, our player grades:

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