Manzambi will go all the way to the top, says Jackson after more Villa heroics

Nicolas Jackson predicted his Aston Villa team-mate Johan Manzambi will go right to the top of the game after he continued his impressive form with the winning goal against Newcastle United.

Manzambi – who had looked set to join Newcastle in the summer before Villa hijacked the move to sign him from Freiburg – scored the only goal at St James' Park on Saturday.

Having been left totally unmarked, he powered Joao Gomes' right-wing cross past Lukas Hornicek in the 36th minute, and Villa held on for three deserved points.

Unai Emery's team had one fewer shot than Newcastle (15 to 16), but they won the expected goals (xG) battle by 1.5 to 1.06 and generated three Opta-defined big chances while not conceding any.

Manzambi now has five goal involvements (three goals, two assists) in all competitions for Villa, and since his debut against Tottenham on September 19, Manchester City star Erling Haaland is the only Premier League player to tally more (six).

The Switzerland international is also just the fourth player to either score or assist on each of their first three Premier League starts for Villa, after Dalian Atkinson in August 1992, Dion Dublin in November 1998 and Danny Ings in August 2021.

Asked about Manzambi's impact in his post-match interview with Sky Sports, Jackson said: "He's an amazing player. He's still growing. 

"Hopefully he can be better and better every game, score goals and assist me sometimes as well! Hopefully we work together and achieve many things together.

"He will go a long way and hopefully he gets no injuries. For sure, if he is okay and he is training hard, he will go a long way and get many more goals and assists."

Jackson was involved in a controversial incident midway through the first half, when Sven Botman's challenge on the Villa striker was checked for a possible red card but cleared by the VAR, despite the centre-back appearing to jump into the tackle recklessly.

Asked if he felt any effects from that challenge, Jackson said: "I'm good. I know the referee said yellow card, but it was so high and hopefully next time it will be a red card. 

"I nearly broke my leg, but anyway, it's part of football. The most important thing is that we won and I'm okay."

Newcastle are now without a home clean sheet in 16 consecutive games in all competitions, which is the longest run in their history.

They have only failed to score in two of their 23 home Premier League games since the start of last season, though, but both have been in defeats to Villa (also 0-2 in January).

And head coach Matthias Jaissle knows his team need to be better in the final third, even if he was pleased with aspects of their performance. 

"It was a game we were dominating, where we saw a team giving a response," Jaissle said. "We created many situations where you felt like we were going to win that game, until we conceded the goal.

"We need to be honest – we were shaking a bit until half-time, but again, we showed a good response. In the second 45 minutes, it was really aggressive from our lads. 

"We won the duels, unfortunately we were not smart enough in the final decision-making in the opposition box, so that is something we need to work on. We need to threaten the opposition much more – the lucky punch was missing.

"We need to learn to find the reset straight away and consistently believe in the things we were doing before. I cannot say anything against the attitude, but the goal was missing."