Aston Villa rebounded from its first loss in two months by beating Nottingham Forest 3-1 on Saturday to climb into second place in the Premier League, while last-placed Wolverhampton finally got its first win.
Villa captain John McGinn scored twice in the second half, building on England striker Ollie Watkins' long-range opener in first-half stoppage time.
Morgan Gibbs-White reduced the deficit to 2-1 in the 61st minute only for McGinn to restore Villa's
two-goal cushion after a poor piece of goalkeeping from Forest's John Victor, who raced out of his area in an attempt to collect a ball over the top. McGinn easily rounded Victor and slotted the ball home from 30 yards (meters).
Victor went off injured immediately after the goal.
Villa's 11-game winning run — which included eight victories in the league — was ended on Tuesday by a 4-1 thumping by Arsenal.
Unai Emery's team moved above Manchester City, which hosts Chelsea on Sunday, and three points behind leader Arsenal, which visits Bournemouth later.
Wolves beat West Ham 3-0 to end its historically bad start to a top-flight season.
No team has taken this long to record its first win in a Premier League since the competition’s inception in 1992.
Jhon Arias, Hwang Hee-chan and Mateus Mané scored first-half goals for Wolves, which moved onto six points, still 12 from safety with 18 games remaining.
The team is only six points behind next-to-last Burnley, which lost at Brighton 2-0, and eight off third-to-last West Ham.
___
Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80
___
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
