The “extraordinary” Villa achieves its first win in Newcastle since the infamous 2005 trip

Steven Taylor was sent off for handball before Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dier were sent off for fighting each other. Juan Pablo Angel scored and Gareth Barry scored two penalty kicks in a 3-0 win for the visitors.

That infamous encounter in April 2005 was the last time Aston Villa won a Premier League match at Newcastle. That means before Sunday.

That was 17 attempts ago. Since then, both clubs have been relegated and back – and this season both are gunning for European glory.

Newcastle ranks seventh in the Champions League league stage. Villa has already secured a place in the round of 16 of the Europa League.

However, after losing 12-1 on aggregate in their past three trips to St James’ Park, Villa’s 2-0 success this time around underscored the progress that has been made under coach Unai Emery.

The result leaves Villa, who recovered from last Sunday’s loss to Everton by adding this win to Thursday’s Europa League victory away to Fenerbahce, in third place in the table and firmly in the title race, just four points behind leaders Arsenal.

Emery was adamant that his players gave a “perfect” performance.

“The players were exceptional,” the Spaniard told BBC Match of the Day.

“We talked about this match and the difficulties some teams are facing in terms of their level here. It is the highest level we can face this season and the players are responding wonderfully.”

“We can only help the players tactically. Off the field, they have to show attitude and commit to working on the game plan and they did that.

“We lost last week and we were very disappointed, but we can be calm again and have confidence. We were comfortable in what we were doing.”