Unai Emery hopes Ollie Watkins can kick on after ending goal drought at Brighton

Aston Villa boss Unai Emery hopes Ollie Watkins’ first-half brace in a thrilling 4-3 comeback win at Brighton can kickstart a return to goalscoring form.

High-flying Villa soared to third place in the Premier League table after overturning a two-goal deficit at the Amex Stadium to register an eighth victory in nine top-flight outings.

Forward Watkins had gone 11 games without a goal before trebling his tally for the season by cancelling out Jan Paul van Hecke’s strike and a Pau Torres own goal.

Amadou Onana and substitute Donyell Malen completed the turnaround for the visitors before Seagulls centre-back Van Hecke ensured a tense finale with his second of the evening.

England international Watkins, who was recalled as part of five changes from Sunday’s 1-0 win over Wolves, now has nine career goals in 10 appearances against Brighton.

“With Ollie, he’s giving me confidence always when he’s working, when he’s focusing on the match, like he was doing,” said Emery.

“Not scoring, sometimes the confidence is getting low but the goals are coming.

“Today he started it and hopefully he can keep now the balance between working and getting numbers.”

Villa were forced into a late alteration before kick-off when goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez withdrew injured during the warm-up.

Back-up keeper Marco Bizot was at fault for Van Hecke’s opener after being thrust into action but redeemed himself with a crucial added-time save to keep out Danny Welbeck’s header.

“He was feeling blocked in his back and he couldn’t even do a warm-up normally,” Emery said of Argentina World Cup winner Martinez.

“We have Marco and he is a fantastic guy, a fantastic professional.

“He knew his role here. He’s ready when he’s available. He performed fantastic. Of course the first goal (was an error) but here for the goalkeeper it’s difficult to defend corners.

“How he saved the last action was fantastic. He’s every day working very well and he’s always been so, so mature and so, so responsible about his role.”

Brighton slipped to seventh position after their 10-match unbeaten home record – stretching back to a 3-0 loss to Villa in early April – was ended.

Albion boss Fabian Hurzeler said: “Of course it’s disappointing when you’re leading 2-0 but these moments can happen, especially in the Premier League, especially when you face a good team.

“It shouldn’t happen. That’s why we will analyse it and try to make it better next time.

“We defended in the first half quite well, the goals we conceded were out of nowhere. It’s more the individual behaviour.

“And then we got (conceded) two goals off set-pieces so in the end the small margins made the difference today.

“We know how important set-pieces are and we weren’t able to defend them today but that’s something we will analyse and we will keep pushing.”