Key events
7 min: Villa back on it. Sancho, Rogers and Bogarde complete a couple of triangles down the right but there’s no way through the Lille back line. On the touchline, Unai Emery looks relatively relaxed.
5 min: A little bit of time on the ball for Lille, their first period of prolonged possession. They don’t do anything with it.
3 min: Rogers sends Sancho into space down the right. He cuts back for Luiz, who hammers a shot goalwards. Alexsandro blocks. The ball ricochets back off McGinn and over the bar. Alexsandro celebrates all of that like he would a goal; it’s possible Luiz’s fierce low drive was heading into the bottom right if it wasn’t for his intervention.
2 min: … but that was a fast start by Villa, and they’ve clearly been told to get right into Lille during the early exchanges. They’re first to everything at the moment. Small sample size, admittedly.
1 min: Abraham gets lively quickly. He steals the ball off a snoozing Bouaddi and feeds McGinn down the inside-left channel. McGinn attempts something spectacular from distance. It doesn’t come off, dribbling harmlessly wide right.
Lille get the ball rolling. A lot of smoke rolling around Villa Park. No pyro, no party.
The teams are out! Aston Villa in their claret and blue, Lille in black and blue. Not sure that’s the greatest mix for colour-blind fans, but their concerns seem to have gone by the wayside these days. Meanwhile here’s a late, unplanned edition of PENNANT WATCH. This has to be a work in progress accidentally released into the wild, surely. William McGregor a purveyor of quality cloth as well. For shame. This “effort” registers 1/10 on our patented aesthetic-o-scope, 11/10 on the will-this-do-o-meter.
Unai Emery speaks to TNT Sports. “Good evening … respect the competition … we played a very safe match in the first leg … today will be very difficult … we must play serious … impose and dominate … but adapt to moments in the game … we must keep our structure tactically … I will need both [Tammy Abraham and Ollie Watkins] … they must be ready to fight to play with their skills.”
… and here’s what happened the last time these teams met. A rare old back-and-forth in the quarter-finals of the 2023-24 Conference League.
The first leg. A reminder of what happened last week, when Ollie Watkins gave Villa a one-goal lead with a second-half header.
Unai Emery makes four changes to his Aston Villa side from the XI that started the 1-0 win in Lille last week. Tammy Abraham, Ian Maatsen, Victor Lindelöf and captain John McGinn are in; Ollie Watkins, Emiliano Buendía, Ezri Konsa and Lucas Digne drop to the bench.
Olivier Giroud, once of Arsenal and Chelsea, leads the line for Lille. Nabil Bentaleb, formerly of Tottenham and Newcastle, starts in midfield.
The teams
Aston Villa: Martinez, Bogarde, Lindelof, Torres, Maatsen, Onana, Douglas Luiz, Sancho, Rogers, McGinn, Abraham.
Subs: Bizot, Wright, Cash, Konsa, Mings, Elliott, Buendia, Watkins, Digne, Garcia, Bailey.
Lille: Ozer, Meunier, Mbemba, Alexsandro Victor, Ngoy, Bouaddi, Bentaleb, Perraud, Mukau, Giroud, Correia.
Subs: Bodart, Lanssade, Fernandez, Arnar Haraldsson, Edjouma, Santos, Mandi, Verdonk, Diaoune, Baret, Boussadia.
Referee: Davide Massa (Italy).
Preamble
Aston Villa should be good for this. They’ve only faced Lille once before in European competition, and got through in the 2023-24 Conference League quarters. They’ve won each of their last six Europa League games, a run that by definition includes the first leg of this tie. Lille have never won in England, losing on their last seven visits. And Villa have Unai Emery at the wheel: Mr Europa League has won this competition four times, with a runners-up medal thrown in to boot. But it’s not been a banner week for English teams on the continent, so let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Bologna or Roma waiting in the quarters, mind. Kick-off is at 8pm GMT. It’s on!