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Aston Villa 2-0 Norwich City

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Jonathan Kodija scores Villa's opening goal against NorwichImage source, Getty Images
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Jonathan Kodjia has scored 17 league goals in his first season at Aston Villa

Two goals from Jonathan Kodjia saw Aston Villa beat 10-man Norwich City at Villa Park.

Kodjia put the hosts ahead midway through the first half when Scott Hogan played him in and the Ivory Coast striker found the roof of the net.

The game was all but settled when Ivo Pinto was shown a second yellow card for a foul on Jordan Amavi.

Kodjia made sure of a home win in the 87th minute when he capitalised on a mistake in the Norwich defence.

A third successive victory for Villa lifted them to 11th, just three points behind Norwich, who slipped to ninth and seven points outside the play-off places.

Nelson Oliveira had the visitors' best chance, just before Kodjia's second, when he was played in on goal by Cameron Jerome, but the Portuguese could not get a shot away after a poor first touch.

Jerome also went close to scoring in the opening 10 minutes, but his effort went inches wide as Norwich's poor return on the road continued.

The Canaries have won just one of their past 14 away league games and remain without a manager following the sacking of Alex Neil last month.

Villa were denied a second before Kodjia's late goal when Nathan Baker saw his header cleared off the line by Ryan Bennett and Conor Hourihane's follow-up skimmed the crossbar.

Aston Villa manager Steve Bruce told ´óÏó´«Ã½ WM: "We showed a little bit of resilience and my goalkeeper has played very very well today.

"I thought we were a little bit leggy but we've stuck at it again and we've kept a clean sheet.

"We're improving. We've still got a lot to do. We weren't great again but we've done enough to win a game of football in this division."

Norwich caretaker boss Alan Irvine: "I thought we played really well for most of the game, even with 10 men.

"We dominated possession, we had territorial advantage, we got into some great positions and we fell down where we would normally be at our strongest.

"The last pass, the last cross in the final third, the last attempt at goal were the things that let us down."

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