It has been an exposing week for Premier League sides in the Champions League and Aston Villa were always bound to join their rivals in having a tough evening as they visited Lille.
Aston Villa needed Emiliano Martinez’s ‘balls of steel’ with a trademark penalty shootout masterclass to get past Lille in the Europa Conference League in 2024, with the provocative goalkeeper and his side having to ride out another storm on Thursday night.
Unsurprisingly, Lille’s boisterous home supporters hurled abuse at Martinez every time he got close to the ball, but he and his teammates did a really good job of controlling the tempo and limiting their opponents to little of note.
Everyone associated with the Premier League side would have happily taken a draw before the round of 16 first leg, but the actual outcome was even better.
Aston Villa had to ride out some nervy moments, with old nemesis Olivier Giroud, who scored in all eight of his previous games against tonight’s opponents, needed to do better as he narrowly missed the target with a header from a cute angle in the best chance of the first half.
Though Lille otherwise failed to seriously threaten Martinez when they had fleeting bursts of high-tempo attacks, and the same could have been said about Aston Villa for much of the game, with their slick passing moves undermined by poor decision-making in the final third.
Injuries have caught up with out-of-sorts Aston Villa in recent weeks as their hopes of securing Champions League qualification are fading, with their situation not helped by a demoralising 4-1 loss to rivals Chelsea last week.
Unai Emery, who Spanish reports say could be off to Chelsea soon (spoiler: he’s not), made four changes from that game for the trip to Lille, but he made a big call to stick with Ollie Watkins over Tammy Abraham.
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Watkins headed into the game on another barren spell in front of goal, having failed to score in any of his first nine Europa League matches this season and only netting once in his last 12 games.
January signing Abraham, meanwhile, is in far better form (two goals in four), but Emery will feel that it has been worth standing by Watkins because of what he offers his side in general play with his stretching of the game, and he finally had a reward in front of goal against Lille.
Just as the game looked likely to drift into a stalemate, Aston Villa broke the deadlock out of nowhere with half an hour remaining.
After being guilty of over-thinking in the final third, a simple long ball from Ezri Konsa, flick-on by Emiliano Buendia and a looping header by Watkins from the edge of the area beat goalkeeper Berke Ozer to make it 1-0.
Villa will hope that this moment of inspiration can spark an upturn in form for Watkins during the run-in, and this could well happen as the Englishman is often streaky in front of goal.
This would be a major boost as they look to avoid more heartache in a battle for Champions League qualification, with the return from injury for John McGinn against Lille and Youri Tielemans’ anticipated comeback after the international break equally important.
Emery was right to say that McGinn’s timely return to fitness following a two-month absence is “massive” for Aston Villa, with the dogged midfielder reminding everyone how important he is for this side during his 15-minute cameo off the bench against Lille.
McGinn was straight into the thick of the action to help Villa get over the line against Lille, with this hugely important 1-0 win restoring order and seeing them take one step into the Europa League quarter-finals.
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