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Jonathan Kodjia has scored 17 goals for Villa this season

Jonathan Kodjia scored twice as a depleted Aston Villa beat 10-man Sheffield Wednesday to claim their fourth win in five games.

Villa had a number of key players out and lost Henri Lansbury in the warm-up before Nathan Baker limped off injured.

Kodjia headed the hosts in front before Vincent Sasso was sent off for a challenge on Conor Hourihane.

Owls boss Carlos Carvalhal was sent to the stands for his subsequent protest before Kodjia fired in his second.

Wednesday started brightly and looked more likely to open the scoring with Sam Winnall twice going close, first firing wide from 25 yards before seeing another attempt on goal saved by Sam Johnstone.

Sasso then had a goal ruled out for offside before Villa took the lead as Kodjia headed in from Conor Hourihane's cross.

Defender Sasso was given a red card just three minutes after the break for fouling Hourihane which led to strong protests from Owls boss Carvalhal, who was also sent off by referee Lee Probert.

Wednesday had a strong appeal for a penalty turned down after Jack Hunt was brought down in the box by Neil Taylor.

And, after Jordan Rhodes fired high and wide, Kodjia then doubled the lead with his 17th goal of the season as he latched onto an Albert Adomah through-ball before rounding Keiren Westwood.

Aston Villa manager Steve Bruce told BBC WM: "We have to be better with the ball, than what we showed but we've turned a horrible run into a decent situation now, we're down to the bare bones, another two injuries today, 11 missing and the sort of run we're on it's credit to them they've rolled up their sleeves.

"Henri Lansbury has hurt his Achilles in the warm-up, and that disrupted us totally but we've overcome it. I felt we needed more up front to give us something we can hit.

"I've always wanted to see Mile Jedinak playing up there. It was good, a change of formation that worked.

"We'd be in serious trouble without Jonathan's goals, we've created wonderful chances to kill the game off and missed them."

Sheffield Wednesday boss Carlos Carvalhal told BBC Radio Sheffield: "I will not talk about the referee decisions, but the red card made an impact. We started very well, had two or three chances to score. They had single opportunities to attack and it was 1-0.

"We tried on the break to score in the second-half but the red card made it harder.

"Even in that situation we had one or two chances to score a goal, we problems with our central defenders, forced to make substitutions but even despite this we had chances to score. With 10 players it was too hard."