Manchester United loanee Rashford opened the scoring from a brilliant counter-attack early in the second half and Marco Asensio added a second with a cool finish 12 minutes from time.

Fellow substitute Donyell Malen settled an incident-packed game deep into stoppage-time as Villa climbed into seventh, leap-frogging a Brighton side that is now eighth on the table.
 
Rashford skewed woefully wide and Matty Cash fizzed a half-volley past the post as Villa started well, while Adringra whistled one past the upright in response for Brighton.

Kaoru Mitoma saw a penalty shout waved away after a tussle with Cash, while Jacob Ramsey tumbled under a foul from Adam Hinshelwood but also saw his claims go unheard.

Yasin Ayari struck the post with an excellent 20-yard free-kick shortly before half-time but Rashford made the breakthrough after 51 minutes when he raced onto Morgan Rogers's long punt and struck his shot into the ground and past Bart Verbruggen.

Brighton thought it had made a swift response through Adingra, but Attwell disallowed the goal for handball against Mitoma after checking the pitch-side monitor and the Seagulls' misery was compounded when Cash laid into the penalty area for Asensio, who side-footed neatly into the bottom-right corner.

Villa added gloss deep into stoppage-time with Malen scoring his first Villa goal with an arrowed strike into the bottom-left corner.

Ezri Konsa said Rashford has a smile back on his face as a result of his goal.

"He's got a smile on his face again. He looks like he's enjoying football again. I'm so pleased for him," Konsa said.

"We have to take it game by game. Now it's all eyes on Saturday [Sunday AEDT against Nottingham Forest].

"We knew this was an important game for us, it was must win. We came to win and that's what we did.

"The [UEFA] Champions League is the main goal. We'll focus on Saturday [Sunday AEDT], another big one for us.

"I thought defensively we were excellent. All 11 of us stuck together. I didn't feel threatened at all.

"We managed to get them on the counter-attack a few times, and we got a few goals.

"It was the desire from everyone. We've kept a few clean sheets in a row. In the last few games we've shown we can do it."