Well the big day was finally here – well big evening given the silly o’clock kick off time – and Aston Villa made a very comfortable, and very comprehensive, return to European football, taking a glorious 5-0 victory over Hibernian and the midget that is Lee Johnson.
Having travelled up to Easter Road for the 1st leg of our Europa Conference League Qualifying Play Off, Ollie Watkins helped himself to a hattrick, Leon Bailey continued his recent improvement by getting on the scoresheet and Douglas Luiz helped himself to another penalty finish.
Amidst the speculation linking Lucas Digne with a departure, he too had another great game and helped himself to three assists.
It was a composed, professional and ruthless display as we returned to this stage for the first time in 13 years and there wasn’t even a hint that we might throw this one to focus on failing to reach the top four, which is a memory that still haunts most of us.
It was just a great day, a great performance and it was never in doubt as Ollie puts himself into our European record books, and Unai Emery stole himself a line as well, as it was a record equalling European win.
Aston Villa players to score a hat-trick in Europe:
Peter Withe
Gary Shaw
Stan Collymore
Ollie Watkins 🆕— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) August 23, 2023
Onto the second leg, and having gone so strong for this one, and opened up such a commanding advantage, you have to imagine some youngsters will get a run out next time as it is already, basically, job done.
Unused Hibernian Subs:
Le Fondre, Boruc, Harbottle, Molotnikov, McAllister, Megwa, MacIntyre.
Unused Villa Subs:
Chambers, Marschall, Revan, Feeney.
As you can imagine, Emery was pretty pleased after that, even if John McGinn admitted he wasn’t happy at half time (we were 3-0 up by then!).
“I’m very happy. It’s our debut in Europe again, in the Conference League, and we’re very excited. One thousand supporters of Aston Villa were here with us enjoying this moment. We prepared the match being very, very serious, being disciplined and trying to do our game plan being strong defensively and offensively. At the end, the result was very good. I don’t know exactly if we deserved to win 5-0, but we deserved to win. We played, firstly, respecting them and, secondly, respecting this competition because we want to be in the group stage. We want to finish the second leg at home with our supporters, trying to be with our stadium full and starting a new way here in Europe.”
Easter Road
Europa Conference League - Qualifying Play Off - 1st Leg
23/08/2023 6:45 pm
Referee: Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea
| Hibernian | Aston Villa | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Watkins (17, 33, 48), Bailey (42), Douglas Luiz (pen 74) | |||||||
| Marshall | Martinez | 45 | |||||
| Miller | Konsa | 75 | |||||
| Fish | Diego Carlos | ||||||
| Hanlon | 68 | Torres | |||||
| Stevenson | Digne | ||||||
| Campbell | 69 | Kamara | 67 | ||||
| Boyle | Douglas Luiz | ||||||
| Vente | 69 | Bailey | 69 | ||||
| Newell | 88 | Diaby | |||||
| Obita | 45 | McGinn | |||||
| Youan | Watkins | 69 | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Bushiri | 68 | Olsen | 45 | ||||
| Doyle-Hayes | 69 | Cash | 75 | ||||
| Doidge | 69 | Tielemans | 67 | ||||
| Delferriere | 88 | Duran | 69 | ||||
| Jeggo | 45 | Traore | 69 | ||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 5 | Goal attempts | 18 |
| 2 | On Target | 7 |
| 3 | Corners | 8 |
| 10 | Fouls | 9 |
| 1 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 30 | % | 70 |
I watched the game on the BBC iPlayer, that was probably worth my annual licence fee. Great performance from all our players. Potm (pundit of the match) must be Alan Hutton, being a Scot on BBC Scotland and being a Villan he had to tread a fine line, which he did very well. Good to see Des Bremner there, that brought back some memories.