Aston Villa v Leeds United: Premier League – live

45 min: Leeds go close. Ayling’s ball is a beauty, Harrison chases it in, but then Martinez smothers it.

Seven minutes have been added on to this half.

44 min: Gnonto and Ashley Young, the latter 18 years older than the former has been quite a contest. Full of fire, too. Jesse Marsch is asking the fourth official to protect his young star who’s been on the end of a couple of reducers though the Italian is arguing his case well, too.

42 min: Alejandro Moreno, an instant hero. Rodrigo is through, rounds Emi Martinez, and then Moreno gets in the way. Fine, last-gasp defending. That will help him settle in.

41 min: Leeds lack a bit of cutting edge. Feels like they have done most of the attacking while conceding a goal, and looking prone to another.

39 min: Good stuff, both teams kicking lumps out of each other, bit of needle. Aaaronon took a whack, but they’re all flying in. Men, at it, as a great sage had it.

38 min: Gnonto and Aaronson look Leeds’ best chances of a goal, and the latter looked to have been hauled down by Tyrone Mings, who cleaned him out in the manner of a rugby union ruck. It appears Michael Oliver wants to let this one flow, as they say. Howard Webb’s advice will be ringing in his ears, no doubt.

37 min: Richard Hirst: “Matt Burtz is welcome to join the insurgency in SW6, with Tim Ream and Antonee Robinson following in the footsteps of such legends as Brian McBride and Clint Dempsey.”

Justin Madson is feeling annoyed: “Hi John, I feel like the more I watch football, the less I understand how the rules work. Two hands pulling on a player running by you is not a foul because it would result in a penalty? VAR has not helped at all – the “clear and obvious error to overturn” rule implies there is a way to review these in a fully objective manner when generally the replay is employed to provide clarity when things are unclear. I understand wanting to protect the referees on the field, but the way they have deployed VAR to essentially rubber stamp the decision on the field feels self-defeating. As much as I hate players surrounding the ref after every whistle, it seems a natural result when the decisions taken are as seemingly arbitrary as they have been.”

35 min: The TV commentators mention Buendia, who I had not realised was on the field. So far, he’s had about as much impact as Philippe Coutinho. Ramsey meanwhile, has to come across to clear the danger when Aaronson scampers down the left. The resultant corner is cleared.

33 min: Robin Koch is booked for smashing over Jacob Ramsey. Leeds’ defenders have been a little edgy here.

32 min: Watkins goes down the Villa Park tunnel, which is down the corner of the field. Big chance for Ings, who has rarely convinced as a Villa player.

31 min: Matt Burtz gets in touch: “Two Americans in the starting eleven for Leeds, with a fellow American on the touchline? Our slow but steady takeover of Yorkshire is falling into place!”

Off goes Watkins, on comes Ings.

30 min: Watkins goes down in surrender to his ankle injury and Danny Ings is imminent.

28 min: Watkins is still feeling that injury after a sprint. Might he have done better than chase down the ball from a Leon Bailey pass that was going begging. Again, Ashley Young had started the move. Watkins was hesitant, and Leeds looked there for the taking.

26 min: Harrison bends that free-kick beyond everyone. Jesse Marsch and Patrick Bamford are in discussion. The striker might have read that one better than his teammates, who utterly failed to read it.

24 min: Louis van Gaal’s legacy – and that of Wout Weghirst and Teun Koopmeiners – lives on. Meanwhile, Alex Moreno is having a tough introduction, penalised for a foul on Luke Ayling. Another free-kick to Leeds.

22 min: Gnonto, on the burst, is the latest to feel a bump and bruise as he’s fouled. There’s a chance for one of Harrison and Aaronson to swing one in, but instead they try a clever one – a Wout Weghorst – and as the ball goes through, does Douglas Luiz pull back Rodrigo. They demand a penalty. They don’t get one.

20 min: Watkins is the latest Villa player to go down, and this could be a worry for Villa. Looks like an ankle problem. It took a twist and looked a bit nasty.

18 min: Joe Pearson gets in touch: “Jeff Beck was such a talent. The most inventive soloist this side of Frank Zappa. And he could play with so much emotion. Any style you like. He will be missed by this particular old guy. With bonus Tal Wilkenfeld bass solo.”

Leeds meanwhile, force another corner and again almost get caught out by a Villa counter. This time, they get back in sufficient numbers.

16 min: Koch is penalised for leaning all over Ollie Watkins, and Villa can launch the ball into the Leeds box, but instead choose to pass the ball. They are noticeably less direct than under Steven Gerrard.

14 min: Aaronson tries to escape down the left but Ashley Young comes across to tackle. The Leeds fans are full voice for the moment. their team is doing much of the attacking but does look vulnerable on the counter. There’s an appeal for handball after it hits Konsa, but nothing doing.

12 min: The game has been stopped for quite a while and it’s taking a while to finds its tempo.

10 min: Digne leaves the field in agony, and the physios have to hold his arm up as he leaves. Begs the question what happens when he has to take it back down. Moreno is on, the 29-year-old having just arrived from Real Betis.

8 min: This is a long delay for Digne, who has barely moved, and he got a knee in the face for his troubles as he fell to his arm. Moreno is being put through his set piece duties on the sidelines.

6 min: Lucas Digne goes down, holding his shoulder. Looks in pain. Will Alex Moreno appear quicker than we expected?

4 min: Leeds could have scored from that corner had Roca made proper contact and yet 17 seconds later, Villa scored. Struijk, like against Stevenage, was caught napping. Unai Emery is getting a tune from Leon Bailey, and it was Ashley Young’s canniness that set off that counter.

Goal! Aston Villa 1-0 Leeds (Bailey, 3)

1 min: And away we go…..

Should you be so interested, the Aston Villa formation is 4-4-2, the Leeds formation is 4-2-3-1. Jesse Marsch and Unai Emery share a warm handshake as Michael Oliver carries out the coin toss. They switch ends, and Villa will attack the mighty Holte End in the first half. The Villa fans not amused by this. It seems their team chose to do this. Leeds kick off, and mount a quick attack through Jack Harrison with Tyrone Mings sliding in.

Hi Ho Silver Lining is pumping out at Villa Park, with extra poignancy added by this week’s loss of Jeff Beck, the singer who hated his own most famous song as he sang on it. Rod Stewart on backing vocals, John Paul Jones on bass, and a huge hit.

The Premier League table suggests Leeds are within reach of both comfort and worry.

Unai Emery spoke to Sky Sports, mostly about transfer business.

We have more players with the possibility to leave and if we can do it we can add more players. We want to improve and have better balance in the squad with different profiles.

We know him [Moreno]; he was a very important player in La Liga. I wanted to sign a different profile of player to Augustinsson, who is on loan from Sevilla. We wanted to be more offensive. We were thinking about different players, but Moreno is the player we had in focus.

The idea is for Augustinsson is to leave, to get another option to play.

Jesse Marsch spoke to Sky Sports, and at length.

Both matches [Newcastle and West Ham] were a tale of two halves. We are trying to put complete performances together and continue to defend better. But in general I think it has been solid, but we know we can get better and that will be the priority tonight.

We want to be very good defensively. We want to press well and be very aggressive without the ball. With the ball I want to see us be a little bit more brave and vertical and not always just play wide and combinations with our full-backs. That will help us also with our counter-pressing. But I still think the key will be what we can do defensively and turning those moments in counter-attacking transitions.

It has been hard having Patrick Bamford out, he’s missed playing football. He has looked lively in training in the last 10 days. That has been my emphasis with him: stopping worrying about missing chances and whether you’re starting or coming off the bench, just enjoy your football and I think we can see the best of him.

From our ten things feature ahead of the Premier League, of which this is the first fixture, Barry Glendenning wrote this.

Coutinho hastens towards Villa exit

Handed his first start under Unai Emery against Stevenage last weekend, Philippe Coutinho played badly, got hooked after 66 minutes and was forced to look on from the bench as Aston Villa were embarrassed by their visitors from League Two. While he is unlikely to start against Leeds this weekend, just over a year after his arrival, his future at Villa seems uncertain at best. In late December, the Brazilian took to social media to rage against what he described as “lies” suggesting he was unhappy at Villa and had asked to leave in January. Given how little he has delivered for the club in the past 12 months, despite a stunning debut against Manchester United, it is difficult to imagine too many fans mourning his departure and he is fast running out of chances to impress. If he really does want to stay at Villa Park, now would be a good time to prove it with on-field actions rather than Instagram tantrums. Barry Glendenning

What do those teams mean? Philippe Coutinho is again benched, while John McGinn is out for Villa, whose new signing Alex Moreno is alongside Coutinho on that bench. No Matty Cash either, but nine changes from the Shame of Stevenage.

Maximilian Wöber, like Moreno, is a new signing on the bench, amid eight changes from Cardiff, with Pascal Struijk keeping his place despite not having the most convincing game in Cardiff. Patrick Bamford is on the bench for the first time since October.

The teams

Preamble