Another blow for Aston Villa: without Dibu Martínez, out of the League Cup | OneFootball

The Birmingham team drew 1-1 with Brentford and fell in the penalty shootout

The very poor start to the season for Aston Villa, which has not managed to score goals or win yet in the four Premier League matches, continued with their elimination this Tuesday from the English League Cup. Without Emiliano “Dibu” Martínez, who was not called up in the rotation made by coach Unai Emery, they fell 4-2 on penalties to Brentford in the third round of the tournament, after the regulation time ended 1-1.

After reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League last season, the start of the new cycle finds the Birmingham team far from that level. They will not be in the most important club tournament of the old continent this year, as they qualified to play in the Europa League due to their position in the last English league, and the world champion goalkeeper with the Argentine national team was only in one match, the 0-0 last Saturday, after his failed move to Manchester United.

Returning to the Gtech Community Stadium, where Aston Villa lost 1-0 to Brentford on August 23 in the second round of the Premier League, they at least found the net for the first time this season, thanks to Harvey Elliott, who recently joined the team. The former Liverpool player, 22 years old, managed to score after a defensive error at 43 minutes, but Aaron Hickey responded with a fierce volley 12 minutes into the second half to equalize the match, which ended up needing a tiebreaker.

In the penalties, without the possibility of adding Dibu because he wasn't even among the substitutes, the opposing team's goalkeeper was the star: Hakon Valdimarsson prevented goals in the shots from John McGinn and Matty Cash, before Danish midfielder Mikkel Damsgaard scored the decisive penalty for a team with one hundred percent efficiency in their four shots.

Emiliano Buendía came on in the second half, when Emery turned to some of the usual starters he had reserved, and managed to score in that shootout, but it was not enough.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.