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Gary Newbon: Big Villa and Wolves wins have set up a cracker of a local derby!

Things are looking up for West Midlands clubs ahead of local derby double

What a great sports weekend – whichever way you turned. Aston Villa scored six past Brighton to leapfrog over them into fifth place in the Premier League.

Wolves beat the champions Manchester City. Now Wolves and Villa will meet at Molineux on Sunday afternoon.

West Bromwich Albion finally banged the goals in to take away Preston North End’s unbeaten record by winning 4-0 at the overnight leaders’ stadium.

Coventry got back to winning ways at QPR after drawing too many Championship matches, and beat Blackburn 1-0 on Wednesday night. Only Birmingham let us down but they made up for it with Tuesday’s 4-1 home win over Huddersfield and then again on Friday against the Baggies.

I am not a golf fan but I was riveted to Sky over the weekend to watch the amazing Ryder Cup win.

Europe beating the USA 16-and-a-half points to 11-and-a-half in Rome. The fightback by the USA with the singles on the last day made it tense. Sport is theatre and, at times, emotional.

The weekend had it all, including the richest horse race in Europe – the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which was won by the 5-2 favourite Ace Impact.

This week brings more football, more World Cup rugby from France and, on Thursday, the start of England’s defence of cricket’s World Cup in India.

Hardly time to go to work!

Wolves’ victory is top of the region’s weekend football achievements.

Despite City’s midweek 1-0 Carabao Cup defeat at Newcastle, you would not have expected the Premier League champions and leaders to slip up at Molineux.

But Wolves’ new manager Gary O’Neil got his tactics smack-on and his central defender Craig Dawson was a real hero.

They won and deserved to do so, keeping City’s big goalscorer Erling Haaland quiet for nearly all the match.

This was the Manchester club’s first league defeat of the season and prevented them from setting a club record of seven successive Premier League wins. They do still head the table. Now they go to Arsenal on Sunday.

For Wolves, this was only their second league win and their first at home this season.

I was worried for their survival under the frustrations of the previous manager, but O’Neil’s arrival has put a spin on it despite the lack of transfer money.

Cannot wait for Sunday’s local derby with Villa.

Meanwhile, what a result at Villa Park as Villa’s excellent home form – ten successive Premier League wins – made for great live TV with their 6-1 win and Ollie Watkins scoring a hat-trick in front of the watching England manager Gareth Southgate.

The stats experts were quick to report that Ollie is the first to score two hat-tricks in a season for Aston Villa since Andy Gray in the 1976-77 campaign. And Watkins has only played in 11 games so far this season!

He is in club talks about a new contract. Unai Emery is confident, apparently, that he will sign. They need to make sure he does.

Villa are now fifth in the Premier League, having won their last two at Chelsea and then at Villa Park on Saturday.

They both looked tough on paper but were anything but difficult in the end. They are playing well, but will have to get used to playing in Europe as well.

Thursday brings the Europa Conference League Group E tie with Zrinjski Mostar at Villa Park (kick-off 8pm live on TNT Sports 2). The team from Bosnia and Herzegovina top the group on goals-for after the opening group matches. Their opener was unbelievable.

Mostar, at home, were 3-0 down at half-time but came back to win 4-3.

Villa lost their opener at Legia Warsaw in Poland 3-2.

The other team in the group are AZ Alkmaar from the Netherlands. The top two in the group will progress.

Albion put in their best performance of the season with their 4-0 win at the then Championship leaders Preston.

This was the Baggies’ first win since August 26 but they have four draws in their nine matches.

Now fifth, will their manager Carlos Corberan keep them in the play-off spots?

They beat Sheffield Wednesday 1-0 on Tuesday night before the local derby with Blues at St Andrew’s live on Sky Sports. They pack in the games in the Championship!

Birmingham, meanwhile, were slipping before the relief of a goal-filled win over Huddersfield. No wins in September, five league games without a win, three straight defeats. But hopefully October will be a brighter month.

Coventry striker Ellis Simms – signed for £3.5 million from Everton – finally scored for his new club with two in the 3-1 win at QPR.

I was beginning to wonder about him. Let’s see how he does versus Norwich on Saturday.

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