Nightmare start! Aston Villa concede four first-half goals in thumping by Brighton

Report and free match highlights as Brighton hammered Aston Villa at the Amex Stadium; Villa crumbled in the first half as Brighton ran riot with FOUR goals in 31 minutes; Villa's first half got worse as Joao Gomes was sent off to cap a nightmare debut

Aston Villa produced one of the worst opening 45 minutes in Premier League history on their way to a heavy 4-0 defeat at Brighton.

Unai Emery's side, who were without a recognised centre forward with Ollie Watkins left out of the squad amid interest from Saudi club Al Hilal, conceded FOUR goals in an extraordinary 31 minutes of football before Joao Gomes capped a nightmare Villa league debut after being shown a straight red card just before the interval.

It all came after a bright start from Emery's side with Emi Buendia, who was playing as Villa's most advanced forward having three efforts on goal inside the first 10 minutes, but that was where any hope ended for the visitors as Brighton went on to run riot in the first half.

Maxim De Cuyper latched onto Pau Torres' poor pass before squeezing his shot in via the post and Victor Lindelof as Brighton took the lead through an own goal.

De Cuyper then got himself on the scoresheet 10 minutes later after converting Georginio Rutter's cross before Jack Hinshelwood's quickfire double (30, 31) sent Brighton to dreamland.

Villa's first-half collapse was complete five minutes before the break as new signing Gomes, who had already been booked, was sent off after a VAR review for a kick out at Rutter.

It capped a first-half to forget for both Gomes and Villa but Emery's side managed to stem the flow of goals in the second half, limiting the damage of what proved to be a costly first-half collapse.

But after a turbulent summer at Villa Park, which has seen key players Morgan Rogers, Youri Tielemans, Ezri Konsa and Lucas Digne leave the club, this is a damaging opening defeat for Villa, leaving plenty of questions for Emery to answer with just over a week left of the summer transfer window.

8: GOAL! De Cuyper latches onto Torres' poor pass before squeezing his shot into the back of the net via the post and Lindelof!

18: GOAL! De Cuyper gets on the score sheet, converting Rutter's cross to double Brighton's lead.

30: GOAL! Hinshelwood heads home from close range to continue Brighton's dream start.

31: GOAL! Less than a minute and 20 seconds later, Hinshelwood grabs a second to inflict more pain on Villa.

40: RED CARD! Villa's first half goes from bad to worse as Gomes is shown a red card for kicking out at Rutter.