U21s: Aston Villa 1-2 Leeds United

Aston Villa were beaten by Leeds United in a hard-fought Premier League 2 encounter at Bodymoor Heath on Friday night.

Sonny Perkins handed the visitors the lead but they were ahead for only three minutes before Josh Feeney smashed home an equaliser.

An end-to-end first half ended with Filip Marschall producing a superb stop to deny Mateo Joseph from the penalty spot.

The Young Lions had chances before and after Perkins bagged his second of the night, but they were unable to find a way through as their unbeaten start to the season came to an end.

Both sides came into the match on the back of unbeaten starts to the season, each recording one win and a draw from their opening two games.

Villa, who thrashed Sunderland 4-0 on Monday, created the first opening of the match when Tim Iroegbunam fed Teddy Rowe at the end of a driving run, with the wide player firing over the bar from the edge of the box.

Tyreik Wright was the first player to hit the target, testing Harry Christy following a flowing move that started with home stopper Marschall.

But despite the hosts’ early attacking intent, the visitors struck with a sucker punch in the 17^th minute when Perkins smashed a left-foot shot past Marschall from outside the box.

The lead lasted all of three minutes before Villa drew level via the boot of Feeney, who lashed home from close-range after the ball dropped kindly for him following a corner.

Leeds were struggling to cope as Villa’s snappy passing and runs in behind dragged them from side-to-side, but another counter-attack handed them a chance to retake the lead from the penalty spot when Darko Gyabi drew a foul from Feeney.

Leeds No9 Joseph stepped up and drilled a low shot to Marschall’s right, but the goalkeeper got down sharply to repel the effort with his right-hand.

Early in the second half, a clash of heads involving Sil Swinkels caused a delay of several minutes before the Dutch defender was replaced by Aaron O’Reilly.

When the action resumed, Villa were back on the front foot once again, seeing marauding full-back Seb Revan drag a shot wide.

The visitors had offered little offensive threat in the second period before a moment of quality from Perkins saw Leeds retake the lead on 66 minutes.

The winger drifted into a yard of space before picking the ball up, jinking his way across the penalty area and sending a low drive just inside the far post.

Regaining the initiative sparked the away side into life and only a tremendous one-on-one save from Marschall kept Joseph at bay.  

Twelve minutes of stoppage time gave Villa hope but they failed to seriously test the Leeds defence as they suffered a first defeat of the season.