Aston Villa equalizes late to draw at Brentford in EPL

LONDON (AP) — Douglas Luiz grabbed a late equalizer as Aston Villa snatched a 1-1 draw at Brentford in the English Premier League to keep its aim of European qualification on track on Saturday.

Ivan Toney looked to have secured a 100th win for Thomas Frank as Brentford manager with his 20th goal of the season in the 65th minute.

But Villa has yet to not score in a match since Unai Emery was appointed manager last October, and Luiz kept up that record with a close-range finish in the 87th.

Villa stayed in sixth place, and was two points behind Tottenham in fifth.

Villa was unchanged from its 3-0 win over Newcastle last weekend, but was unable to match that dazzling display against a physical Bees side. All it had to show for an anemic first-half performance was Emi Buendia’s toe-poke, which forced an early save from David Raya, and a narrowly wide curler from John McGinn.

At the other end, Bryan Mbeumo was giving Alex Moreno the runaround, flicking Toney’s pass over the full back’s head before volleying straight at Emiliano Martinez.

Moreno won their next duel with a goal-saving sliding tackle just as the Cameroon forward was about to side-foot Vitaly Janelt’s cross into an empty net.

Martinez bravely dived at the feet of Toney as the Bees frontman attempted to steer in Kevin Schade’s low cross.

The Argentina World Cup winner also raced out of his area to deny Janelt, and must have hurt himself in the process as he was replaced by Robin Olsen at halftime.

Olsen dealt with a looping header from Bees substitute Frank Onyeka, but made a mess of another header from Schade.

The winger, yet to score for the Bees since joining on loan from Freiburg in January, was presented with an open goal but from a tight angle he fired into the side-netting.

Mbeumo should also have hit the target after racing on to Toney’s ball over the top, only to sky his first-time shot.

A goal was coming, and it arrived when Mbeumo tormented Moreno once more before swinging in a cross which Ashley Young missed and Toney converted at the far post.

Onyeka should have doubled the lead when he met another Mbeumo cross but he scuffed his effort wide.

It proved a costly miss as, after a goalmouth scramble, Buendia pulled the ball back for Luiz to lash home and snatch a point.

There was still time for Ollie Watkins, who had a quiet game against his old side, to squander a chance to make it a club-record sixth straight league win for Villa when his stoppage-time header flew over.

___

More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports