Villa’s win at Fenerbahce leaves Dave Woodhall happy.
It’s not been a good few days for the Villa. We learned what a home defeat is, lost out on a player we’d been chasing, sold another who could have done a job for the rest of the season and the injuries piled up a bit higher. Unai doesn’t seem happy, players are linked with moves. It wasn’t the ideal time to be venturing into one of the most hostile atmospheres in Europe.
Unai made six changes from last Sunday’s setback. Some were forced, others less so, but the loss of one talisman was partly offset by the return of Tyrone Mings, partnered by Victor Lindelof with Marco Bizot behind them. The rest of the team more or less picked itself, with several youthful names on the bench. The omens weren’t promising but in the end it was a night when Villa showed that they can take anything thrown at them and triumph.
The team went at Fenerbahce from the off, with Villa looking dangerous from a couple of corners before a deflected cross was met by the unlikely but deadly head of Jadon Sancho after 25 minutes. He should have got another not long after that, but his first touch was poor and although he rounded the keeper his shot was blocked and came off the referee before Morgan Rogers put the ball into the net.
Throughout the second half Sancho and Rogers were dangerous, running the home defence ragged. Matty Cash hit the post with a long-range shot while Rogers had another goal disallowed after Sancho was marginally offside. At the other end Mings and Lindelof were dominant and when the ball did get past them, Marco Bizot made a couple of top-quality saves. We did get the chance to see what happens when Fenerbahce score, but the noise suddenly stopped when VAR made its intervention.
Villa managed to kill the game off well and the substitutions that Unai made were, as ever, what was required. There didn’t seem to be any danger of losing the lead but that didn’t prevent three Villa players being booked in stoppage time and a strange incident as Unai showed his displeasure with Youri Tielemans when he came off.
In the end it was a notable win against opposition who might not have been the best but who were always going to give Villa’s inexperienced replacements a tough time. Bizot was reckoned by general acclaim to be man of the match and not only that, perhaps he might have shown that we can be spending tens of millions elsewhere than on a replacement for Emiliano Martinez, should one be needed.
Mings was Mings, able to head the ball away all night if needs be as well as looking dangerous at the other end of the pitch and if you’ll excuse the racial profiling, if you want a solid, no-nonsense central defender for an occasion like this, you can’t do much better than a Scandinavian. The big debate before the match had been whether Jhon Duran would score or get sent off. In the end he did neither, looking totally anonymous throughout.
That’s Villa into the top eight and to round the night off a late equaliser 1,700 miles away meant a win in the final match will see us get the advantage of a second leg at home all the way until a return to Istanbul. May as well tempt fate now as later.
