Unai Emery has urged his Aston Villa players to maintain their consistency, after notching their first Premier League win of the season against Fulham on Sunday. 

Emery watched on as his side came back from Raul Jimenez's third-minute header at Villa Park in style, led by Emiliano Buendia's impressive contribution from the bench. 

The Villans had hauled themselves level in the 37th minute through Ollie Watkins' first Premier League goal of the season, with Emery choosing to be proactive at the break. 

He replaced Harvey Elliott with Buendia, and the latter made an instant impact as he fed John McGinn, who picked out the bottom-left corner with a stunning drive from distance. 

Buendia then got himself on the scoresheet two minutes later, finishing beyond Bernd Leno from close range before Emery's team held on for a morale-boosting three points. 

Indeed, Buendia both scored a goal and provided an assist in the same Premier League match for only the second time in his career (also against Burnley in May 2022).

Villa also picked up their first league win of the campaign at the sixth attempt, the latest they have ever won their first match of a Premier League campaign and latest overall since the 1969-70 season, when they didn't win their first match until their 10th encounter in the second tier. 

Emery's team have now put together back-to-back victories in all competitions at Villa Park after starting their Europa League campaign with a 1-0 win over Bologna in midweek, and the Spaniard highlighted the importance of winning on home soil. 

"I'm happy. Overall, we kept the consistency we achieved on Thursday, but we started a little bit low on energy. We conceded one goal, and it was again a very difficult moment, but we reacted," he told Sky Sports. 

"We were winning duels and recovering the ball as high as possible, and then we were being aggressive.

"We drew three matches away, it wasn't the worst, and it wasn't the best either. I said we were improving and getting better, but we needed to improve things, and today we did it.

"We play in Feyenoord on Thursday, and we have the opportunity to get confidence there. It's another opportunity and challenge. Then, we can keep being consistent at home."

Villa went on to win a Premier League match by a 2+ margin after conceding the first goal for the first time since October 2024.

Coincidentally, that was also a 3-1 victory against Fulham in which Jimenez opened the scoring inside the opening five minutes, and in which Watkins was on the scoresheet for the Villans.

But they were worthy of their win here, generating an expected goals (xG) total of 1.4 from their nine shots to Fulham's 0.9 from their 11 attempts in a much-improved second-half display from Emery's side. 

Fulham, meanwhile, lost just their second game of the campaign, and were denied a third consecutive Premier League win.

"This is a disappointing result for us. The things we can control, we have to do them for ourselves," Marco Silva said.

"The game was going in the direction we predicted and wanted, and we had some very good chances before they equalised.

"Then after we conceded the [first] goal, we shouldn't and we can't concede a [second] goal like this. We have to be much stronger in these types of moments.

"We didn't give many spaces inside the box, we were prepared for that situation, and we have to blame ourselves."