The visitors suffered a pre-match blow with Jean-Clair Todibo getting injured in the warm-up, but Mads Hermansen sprang across his goalline to tip Lucas Digne’s strike wide before Konstatinos Mavropanos headed away the ensuing corner to ensure there wasn’t any added disappointment early on.
Villa Park was given reason to erupt on the quarter-hour mark, though, as Matty Cash played a free-kick short to Jadon Sancho, who played a perfectly-weighted pass for John McGinn to effortlessly stroke a first-time effort in from the edge of the box.
Taty Castellanos and Amadou Onana headed wide at either end shortly after the opener, before Ollie Watkins struck wide and then teed up Morgan Rogers for an effort that was well saved by Hermansen.
Rogers also had a shot blocked by Aaron Wan-Bissaka as the Villans continued to cut through the visitors with ease, and he was then denied by a miraculous Mavropanos header on the line.
The Greece international got his body in the way yet again to deflect a Watkins shot wide, and Ezri Konsa then bounced a header over the crossbar shortly before the break.
Nuno Espirito Santo responded with a double change ahead of the restart, but the hosts remained on the front foot with Hermansen being forced to tip a venomous Ross Barkley strike over the crossbar and Matty Cash came agonisingly close from range moments later.
The Hammers started to create openings of their own as the half progressed, yet Matues Fernandes was denied by Digne, before Emiliano Martinez held Axel Disasi’s header and Konsa got his head to Jarrod Bowen’s effort.
Pablo then blazed his shot over the crossbar, and the disappointment from that effort was compounded when Hermansen unconvincingly parried Rogers’ shot and was punished when Watkins pounced to finish.
Tammy Abraham’s audacious attempt in the final moments trickled harmlessly wide, but the work had long been done as Villa ended their four-game winless run in the PL to capitalise on teams around them dropping points to go within one point of third-placed Manchester United and five points clear of Liverpool.
In contrast, Nottingham Forest’s win over Tottenham Hotspur means West Ham are one point behind Spurs after the Hammers suffered just the second defeat from their last nine matches across all competitions.