In many ways, the first half of the Aston Villa match against Crystal Palace can be viewed as a microcosm for how the opening Premier League fixtures have gone for Villa so far.
At times, Villa have enjoyed a good portion of the possession. Outside of a late moment on a through ball to Ollie Watkins, however, there was not too much that troubled Dean Henderson.
Marco Bizot was called into the action around the 19th minute. His foot caught Daichi Kamada in the penalty area and earned the keeper a yellow card. Although the incident is something that should have been reviewed. In live time it looked like Bizot caught Kamada. It is known, though, how players can and will embellish contact or simply outright go down as soon as they know that their foot is over the leg of the opposition player.
In either event, VAR was not called to at least take a look, and Jean-Philippe Mateta converted the penalty.
Lost momentum for Aston Villa
From there, Villa were not able to gain the same foothold in the match that they had enjoyed prior to the penalty. With options being short on the bench and morale likely being low with the development of Emiliano Martínez finding a way at the last moment to go to Manchester United, Unai Emery's side will need to dig in deep within themselves to change around the fortunes of this match and to realistically change the current trajectory of the season.
The players are in place, and there is plenty of quality that should be able to have a strong showing still. To this point, Villa have not shown what they are fully capable of.