Villa beat Bologna in the Europa League and Dave Woodhall is enjoying himself.
Villa were 1/250 to go through to the Europa League semi-finals, while in the most unbalanced book I can ever remember, Bologna were 11/1. Of course, the bookies themselves have little to do with such arithmetical calculations and rely on betting patterns to set the odds. Villa’s were probably about right while there would have been a few two or three quids put on Bologna because you never know. Of such pessimism are bookmakers’ Ferraris bought.
Those odds looked even less generous when the teams were announced and Villa’s was as strong as could be; Unai was clearly taking no chances. Then again, if you don’t play a full-strength team at this stage, when will you?
The idea might have been to kill the game off early then bring on a few subs. If this was the case then it seemed to have got off to a good start with Villa dominant and Ollie Watkins not taking long to get his hundredth goal. And what a corker it was, a flowing twelve-pass move reminiscent of the team’s brightest periods of recent years, finishing with Morgan Rogers squaring the ball to give Watkins a straightforward tap-in. Not only was it his landmark goal but also his fifth in seven games. An in-form Ollie Watkins is just what we need at this stage of the season.
It wasn’t long before Villa had the chance to go two up, when a harsh penalty was given for handball. Morgan Rogers seemed to have decided that it wasn’t deserved and let the keeper make a good save. The ball went out for a throw, was given to Emiliano Buendia and he made room for himself magnificently to get the goal Rogers hadn’t wanted. Bologna’s marking might not have been brilliant but the way in which Buendia took the ball and finished was worthy of a much grander occasion.
Six minutes before half-time Rogers decided that he wanted to score after all. Watkins laid the ball off for John McGinn, who found Rogers, who found the back of the net net. Again the marking was poor, again the quality of the finish was in no way diminished.
Villa could have got at least another three in the second half; the visitors were demoralised, the tie was over. Substitutions were made as the match took the air of a training session. The current situation means that Unai can’t bring on £100 million players from the bench so instead he minimises the effort made by what he does have at his disposal. There were a couple of chances, nothing to get overly excited about, then with a minute to go a sharp turn and volley from Ezri Konsa gave Villa a fourth.
It was a convincing performance against poor opposition but if you’ll excuse the cliche, you can only beat what’s in front of you and any team who can get seven goals in a European quarter-final can say they’ve done well. And a few bookies will be able to put another down-payment on another Ferrari. On to the semi-finals and another glamorous trip to the continent.
