When Matheus Cunha went over the Jack Hayward stand at the end of this crucial victory for Wolves, he celebrated wildly. He pulled at the club crest and kissed it. He pumped his chest and banged it with his fist. He also mimicked writing a signature to the crowd. What could it mean? By the end of the night Wolves had announced a renewal with their Brazilian talisman who may just keep them up. The contract makes him Wolves’ highest-paid player and has a release clause that activates in June.

Vítor Pereira confirmed in words what Cunha had been signalling by gesture. “Matheus is a special player and he’s committed with us,” the head coach said. “He knows that in the future he can play in the best teams in England, but he is committed with us and he understands that it is very important that if he leaves the club he does so with the club in the Premier League.” He declared himself “very happy and proud” of a win that took his side out of the bottom three and ended a run of four defeats on the trot.

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Cunha scored the second goal of this match in second-half added time. It was a quality effort, a combination of skill, patience and cunning. Running the ball on the counter from inside his own half, Cunha stood up the Aston Villa defence as if waiting for backup, only to shift the ball out from his feet and cut a low shot across goal and into Emiliano Martínez’s net. It was a goal to settle the nerves at the very last, but also a testament to the resilience a battered and bruised Wolves side had shown to see off Champions League knockout stage qualifiers.

For Villa this was an unwelcome continuation of their faltering league form, and with Ollie Watkins among four players withdrawn at half-time, the message seemed to be that this was one high-intensity fixture too far for Unai Emery’s men. The Villa coach said after that Watkins was carrying an injury and the hunt for forwards, which is focused primarily on Marcus Rashford but also includes a push to get Marco Asensio on loan from Paris Saint-Germain, becomes ever more important for him.

It was perhaps to be expected that Emery’s team would look rusty after their European exploits midweek. They had previously won only once after playing in the Champions League this season, and that was against Wolves in September.

Wolves had taken the lead in that match too but here the fixture had a different flavour. The home side should have had the three points wrapped up, stamped first class and sent to Premier League HQ way before the half-time whistle. They were sharper, more determined and for a side that had lost their past four matches it was striking how slick they were too.

The opening goal came in the 12th minute and was a beauty. After building on the left side Wolves worked the ball to Cunha about halfway inside the Villa half. Always with one eye on an opportunity, he quickly slipped the ball to Gonçalo Guedes, who bounced it across to Pablo Sarabia six yards or so from the tip of the D.

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The Spaniard looked up, saw Jean-Ricner Bellegarde bombing on down the right and slipped a pass inside Lucas Digne to the Frenchman. Bellegarde could have cut the ball back but chose to shoot, and the ball flashed beyond Martínez as the Argentinian left a gap at his near post.

Villa were struggling to get a foothold. Emery threw his team up in the air at half-time and they crafted their best opening seven minutes later when one of the replacements, Donyell Malen, had the ball in the net.

The Dutchman tucked away a calm finish after a cutely worked set piece but the goal was overruled on the pitch by the referee, Andy Madley, a decision backed up by VAR. An offside Morgan Rogers was adjudged to have impeded Nélson Semedo in the buildup, a decision which split opinion.

“The team pushed in the second half and we had the chances,” Emery said. “Overall we enjoyed the Champions League on Wednesday, now the next step is to have a normal way for us [to maintain performance]. This year it has been more difficult. We have to be intelligent – we don’t have the power some teams have –but to get a balance, this is the most important thing.”