At last, a first win of the season for Aston Villa. They made harder work of it than they might have done against limited opponents, and there were rather more nervous moments than there probably should have been, but a win’s a win, and after the start to the season Villa have had, that’s the most important thing. But nobody should think Villa are back just yet.
Villa took an early lead, should have had the game wrapped up by the hour and Ollie Watkins missed a penalty to extend his goal drought but, in the end, it took a backpedalling injury-time save from Marc Bizot to keep out a Remo Freuler header and preserve the victory. “We have won and this is the important thing,” said Unai Emery. “We have to recover more or less again the feeling of being strong and playing with confidence. We played well. If we had been more clinical with moments we had in the attacking third we could have got something, but over 90 minutes it was better than the last matches.”
It’s only just over five months since Villa Park last hosted European football, but it feels a lifetime ago. That was the Champions League quarter-final as Villa mounted a rousing fightback against Paris Saint-Germain that, although it fell short, rattled the eventual champions. Coming after a series of memorable European nights – the win against Bayern, the victory in Leipzig, the last-16 demolition of Club Brugge – there was a clear sense then that this was where Villa belonged, and there seemed little reason to think they could not become Champions League regulars.
John McGinn delivers his distinctive celebration after his early goal. Photograph: Aston Villa/Aston Villa FC/Getty Images
Villa’s subsequent defeat at Old Trafford on the final day of last season thrust them into the Europa League, engendering a sense of anti-climax that hasn’t yet gone away. Only six players who started against PSG also started against Bologna on Thursday, while Monchi, the sporting director, resigned on Tuesday. Nobody really thinks they’re in relegation trouble but, equally, a start that has seen them take just three points and score just one goal in their first five games has come as a reminder that nothing in the Premier League can be taken for granted.
The hope perhaps was that the sniff of Europe, even the secondary competition, could awake something in Villa and, up to a point, it did. Evann Guessand had already drawn a sharp low save from Lukasz Skorupski when John McGinn put them ahead after 13 minutes, squeezing his shot from 20 yards between a defensive leg and the post with the keeper unsighted. It was his fourth European goal from outside the box since the beginning of 2023-24, more than any other player in that period, and, if that makes it baffling Bologna afforded him so much space, some mitigation was provided by the way everybody momentarily froze after a Morgan Rogers’s air-shot.
Bologna have themselves begun the season slowly after a little more squad turnover than they might have liked. Villa had a clear physical advantage and, as a result, looked a far more threatening side than they have domestically. But the second goal didn’t arrive, not even after another moment of Bologna paralysis, prompted when the ball rolled near the arm of a prone Watkins. That allowed Villa to regain possession and, as Watkins ran through, he was clipped by Martin Vitík.
Ollie Watkins’ penalty is saved by Lukasz Skorupski. Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPA
Watkins’s penalty, though, was dreadful, low and slow and straight down the middle, allowing Skorupski to kick away. “He has to be happy because he did his work,” said Emery. “Of course if he is scoring he is going to feel better. But the most important thing is how he is working in his task for the team. He didn’t score, but the team scored because of the work he is doing.”
The result, inevitably, was pressure. Even the Bologna manager Vincenzo Italiano said he could sense the mounting anxiety. Santiago Castro headed against the bar and then, from a left-wing free-kick Jens Odgaard headed against Bizot, who found himself in no man’s land but at least was able to starfish himself to make the block.
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Thereafter, the game essentially had two states: the ball bobbing in and around the Villa box to a soundtrack of nervous grumbling, and Rogers getting annoyed either himself or Jadon Sancho, who had come off the bench for Emi Buendía to make his Villa debut, as Villa squandered another counter-attacking opportunity, as growls of frustration ran around the stands.
Villa’s Europa League campaign is up and running, but they remain a long way from the heights of last season.