Villa hardly ever score four goals either, and it’s a long time since we had a straightforward second leg when we’ve been a goal up, so there was a bit more trepidation around the ground than there should have been as kick-off time approached against Lille. The team had a few changes, with Victor Lindelof and Tammy Abraham starting, while John McGinn was continuing to get up to match fitness.

We had a nice commemoration of Unai’s 100 wins as manager before the match, while Lille’s supporters yet again showed the difference between policing in England and on the rest of the continent. Before the first leg we were used as target practice by the stewards and riot police; at Villa Park theirs managed to bring in flares and God knows what else. It might seem like a trivial point but one day this sort of double standard is going to cause a serious problem and everyone knows who’ll get the blame.

Villa’s style of play has come in for a bit of criticism lately but it was exactly what was needed on the night. The team drew any idea of attacking intent out of the visitors, tried to exploit the space left by Lille on the break and got to half-time with Emiliano Martinez hardly having to touch the ball. It might not have provided much excitement, it didn’t need to.

Then they stepped up in the second half to do enough to win the game. Martinez saved a free-kick, hit the ball long into the path of Jadon Sancho and there was John McGinn bursting through to score the most widely-celebrated goal in weeks. After that Unai had the luxury of being able to make substitutions to benefit the players involved rather than trying to salvage a result. In particular Abraham was replaced by Ollie Watkins and McGinn by Emiliano Buendia, with Matty Cash also coming on.