Villa win in Bologna and Dave Woodhall’s vita is dolce.
It says a lot about modern football that when the Villa team was announced for this, a Europa Cup quarter-final, a few eyebrows were raised that it as such a strong line-up. You could possible argue that Ian Maatsen and Douglas Luiz might deserve a start but those two slight debates apart, this was pretty much a first-choice team. In fact, should Villa get that far this could well be the team that would start in the final. Should we get that far.
With a line-up like that the players would only have had themselves to blame if anything had gone wrong at this quintessentially Italian stadium in a quintessentially Italian city. And at first it looked like a quintessentially Villa performance whenever there’s an opportunity to move forward. Bologna were the sharper side and the best keeper in the world had already had to be at his best when the ball crept just over the line via an Ezri Konsa deflection. Luckily there was an even more fractional offside and just as luckily another chance hit the bar and bounced away.
Bologna must have started to realise it wasn’t going to be their night. John McGinn’s shot just curled the wrong side of the post and then the Bologna keeper totally misjudged a corner, as did their defender and Konsa put Villa into the lead. Bologna had a chance at the start of the second half but straight away Ollie Watkins threaded the ball into the box and through the keeper’s legs to put Villa two up. It might not exactly have been deserved, but never mind. Playing away in Europe is all about moments like this when it’s you against what seems the entire world and you’re coming out on top.
Bologna hit the woodwork again and then in the final minute of normal time Leon Bailey, who had only just come on, may as well have stayed off for all the effort he put into a tackle with the result that the home side got a goal back. Two-one would have been a decent enough result to come away with but the drama wasn’t over yet. One of the more annoying events of the season has been how corners have turned into rugby set-pieces, and like many aspects of modern football may as well blame Arsenal. Villa didn’t send many players up for the corner they did get in stoppage time but the ones who were in the box occupied the attentions of the Bologna defence enough to leave Watkins ludicrously unmarked a couple of yards out.
The final score was totally deserved, as are all our wins in Europe. A couple of the team are off form at the moment but that’s more than compensated by the return of McGinn and Youri Tielemans, as well as Watkins looking back to his best and total professionalism from the rest. A three-one lead to take back to Villa Park is better than you can ever hope for at this stage and if we don’t get through from this position then it really will be nobody’s fault but the players’.
