Pundit and Media Watch on Aston Villa 24/25

[PeterWithe]

Jonathan Liew in The Guardian.

On a glorious night when the club celebrated its past, beating Bayern Munich has turned the clock forward

 
Pau Torres gathers possession in front of the Holte End, where in 2016 a banner was unfurled reading: “No fight, no pride, no effort, no hope.” He threads the ball over the halfway line, where Tony Xia once stood as the new Aston Villa chairman and promised to build a theme park. In the dugout Unai Emery leans forward expectantly, just a few yards from where – six years ago to the day – a disgruntled fan threw a cabbage at Steve Bruce.

And so as Jhon Durán’s speculative shot brushes the back of the net and the hairs stand up on the back of the neck and the crowd surges and swells, was it all worth it in the end? Worth the indignities, worth the irrelevance, worth 11,000 against Middlesbrough in the League Cup, worth losing at home to Stevenage, worth Remi Garde and Roberto Di Matteo?

One-nil against Bayern Munich. History doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes. And Gary Shaw isn’t here any more, but Dennis Mortimer and Peter Withe are gripping each other tight, and there are grown men in the crowd with tears in their eyes, and Durán is simply smiling and nodding as if to say “I told you so”.

This is a place that has spent the last few decades trying and largely failing to escape its ghosts. The past is everywhere you look here. It lives in the weathered murals and the grainy photos and the famous Brian Moore commentary plastered on to the Doug Ellis Stand, and even in the red brick structure itself, which basically looks like a Victorian sherbet factory, the kind of building you are almost surprised to find still open.

So perhaps it was only natural that Villa Park’s first taste of the Champions League would be freighted by a certain sense of history. And not just the obvious parallels with 1982, but the more recent past, the long and often ignominious journey Aston Villa have taken to get here. Relegations and promotions, five managers in 20 months, getting turned down by Rickie Lambert. A night to feel a little dazed and concussed at the sheer pace of progress, the decades of despair swept away at a stroke.

But of course there is always a danger here too. The danger is that you play the occasion rather than the opponent, the spectre over the flesh. Is second in last season’s Bundesliga really a marked step up in class from fourth in the Premier League? Is Kim Min-jae really that much better than Pau Torres, is Manuel Neuer really a huge upgrade on Emi Martínez, is Harry Kane really in a different class to Ollie Watkins? Put more simply: do you play like the team fulfilling a long-held dream? Or the team that actually belongs at this level?

Twenty minutes into this game, it felt like we had our answer. Bayern had 73% possession and all the territory. Villa were watchful, disciplined, well-spaced, too respectful by far. But Torres’s early strike – though disallowed for offside – seemed to click something into place.

Shortly afterwards Morgan Rogers broke at pace. Amadou Onana had a shot. Jaden Philogene scythed into Alphonso Davies, having maintained a deferent distance for the first quarter of the game. Youri Tielemans wheeled Joshua Kimmich around as if disappearing through a trick door. Suddenly Villa seemed to remember that this was the team who blew last season’s Bundesliga, managed by the guy who lost here with Burnley last season.

And for the likes of Rogers and Philogene, and Jacob Ramsey too before he went off injured, this is the sort of history that matters. Unlike the thousands in the stands, Villa’s young English guard are not scarred by the past, not naturally wary or fatalistic. Does Philogene even register 1982 as a year that happened? Not on this evidence, a whirlwind Champions League debut belying the 43 minutes of football he has had this season and the fact that he was playing for Hull City a few months ago.

Rogers was pretty well unplayable, a spinning machete of a player, flying into clouds of Bayern shirts and somehow emerging with the ball still at his feet.

In between times there were still long spells of Bayern possession, lots of pressure, a few half-chances but until the last few minutes nothing truly frightening. Kane drifted in and out, ubiquitous and yet somehow entirely ephemeral, like the plot in a Claire Denis movie. Villa were able to break with pace and numbers. Finally the exhausted Watkins made way for Durán, and everyone knows what happens when that happens.

Time for a new page. This is a club with a rich and beautiful history, but right now history is not remotely the most interesting thing about it. Perhaps it was fitting that this was a victory largely crafted by the new generation, the players who can show this club where it is going, the young men who can craft its future. On a night when Villa celebrated its past, they somehow ended up turning the clock forward.

[Rory]

Unusually generous for the Guardian.

[Dave]

Posted this on the post match page  but perhaps it should be here

Same, from F365

Unai Emery wants to turn nights like this for Aston Villa into the norm and if anyone can it’s him. But this was anything but normal. Jhon Duran, you beauty.

Bayern Munich offered a compelling answer in the first 15 minutes to the question posed by the Aston Villa fans at kick-off. Who the f***ing hell are we? The team your lot can’t get the ball off.

All 20 outfield players were in Villa’s half, with Joshua Kimmich dictating play from midfield as those ahead of him interchanged positions in a fluid Vincent Kompany system that prioritises third-man runs and counter-pressing.

Kompany’s side are now a team playing in a manner in keeping with the quality they have in their ranks, as displayed by them scoring nine goals on matchday one in the Champions League and 30 goals across their seven games so far this season. Make no mistake – despite this result – after a fallow season, Bayern Munich are a force to be reckoned with again; a significantly better side than the one that knocked a limp Arsenal out of the competition six months ago.

Michael Olise forced a stunning save from Emiliano Martinez with a dipping shot seemingly destined for the top corner, Serge Gnabry blazed a shot wide having been sent through after a particularly good move from front to back when he should have squared it for Harry Kane, and it felt as though Bayern would eventually break the Villa rearguard, stubborn though it was.

But Villa didn’t need much of the ball to show they very much belong back in Europe’s showcase competition, playing in a repeat of the final they won 42 years ago.

And with 1982 hero Peter Withe watching from the stands it was Aston Villa’s current striker putting the willies up Bayern on Wednesday. Ollie Watkins won all five of his duels in the first half, most of them against Dayot Upamecano, who was frequently left one on one with a guy you really don’t want to be left one on one with.

The centre-back could quite easily have been shown a straight red for bringing Watkins down as the last man in the 15th minute – a challenge the referee inexplicably waved away – and certainly should have played no further part after a very similar challenge saw him cautioned seven minutes later.

“They just need to get that pass right once” was the call on commentary. Unai Emery will argue they did – twice – and should have reaped the deserved reward of playing the majority of the game with an extra man. Turns out they didn’t need the advantage. Not when you’ve got Super Jhon Duran.

That’s now six goals in under 300 minutes of football this season for Duran, five of them clinching victory for his side; this was another beauty.

Pau Torres – who had a fine goal ruled out for offside midway through the first half and was utterly brilliant throughout, both in and out of possession – played a pinpoint 50-yard pass to split the Bayern defence and after a quick glance over his shoulder to spot that Manuel Neuer was doing his I’m A Frustrated Midfielder bit, Duran lifted the ball over the goalkeeper in a moment that combined sheer joy and a sense of inevitability, because this is just what this extraordinary young footballer does.

It got us thinking: do Villa have the second and third best strikers in the Premier League? A debate for another time perhaps, and there will no doubt be further questions as to how Emery can get both of them into his team.

Not that us mere mortals should be questioning what the Spaniard is doing. Having masterminded a two-legged victory over Bayern with Villarreal just over two years ago, he’s beaten them again with another underdog that had its back to the wall for the majority of the game but delivered the killer moment.

Villarreal were knocked out by Liverpool in the semi-final that season, and while we’re not giddy enough just yet to suggest Villa can match that feat in their first taste of top level European football for over four decades, under Emery, after this result, with Big Jhon Duran a guaranteed goal from the bench in every game they play, Villa will fancy getting a result against any team they come up against.

“My idea is to try to get something natural,” Unai Emery said in his pre-match press conference, in reference to a feeling shared by all Villa fans, that it’s “very bad” that the club hasn’t played in the Champions League/European Cup since 1983, with a view to turning what was a night full of emotion for everyone associated with Villa into the norm.

This was anything but normal. It was special; a landmark moment in an incredible rise of a football  club that may some time reasonably soon see a 1-0 over the six-time champions of Europe as a run-of-the-mill occurrence. Not just yet though. For now, euphoria isn’t just allowed but expected.

[Tuscans]

Guillem Balague at the game last night

https://x.com/guillembalague/status/1841752409627869598?s=46&t=F_xB6uUl753-UBY60OPahA

[Garyth]

I look forward to all the think-piece columns ‘Can Villa maintain their form at the top of the champions league’, similar to last season after the arsenal/Man City wins in the PL. 😁

[Border villan]

Just caught up with BBC Midlands preview from last night.
They managed to interview people in a pub which the graphic called the Whitton Arms, more lazy journalism.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Guillem Balague at the game last night

https://x.com/guillembalague/status/1841752409627869598?s=46&t=F_xB6uUl753-UBY60OPahA

Not sure if already mentioned, he's writing a book on Unai and the Villa, 'The Giant Awakes'. He's a top man and you can tell just how much he loves us and especially Unai.

[cdbearsfan]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/crejqw34r3xo

Sorry why is it a black and white photo ?
I don't like how BBC article has put Villa victory against Bayern Munich in black and white depicting it's as if it was even longer than it was.
They made a decision to do that rather than colour didn't they?
I mean it wasn't black and white photos then?

I think it's just a style, thing. I think the black and white adds a touch of gravitas to it. Press coverage of Villa in the run up to and in the aftermath of yesterday's game has been really good, generally, I reckon.

If you look at other forums the fawning certainly seems to be annoying some of our "rivals", which is always nice to see.

[astonvilla82]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/crejqw34r3xo

Sorry why is it a black and white photo ?
I don't like how BBC article has put Villa victory against Bayern Munich in black and white depicting it's as if it was even longer than it was.
They made a decision to do that rather than colour didn't they?
I mean it wasn't black and white photos then?

I think it's just a style, thing. I think the black and white adds a touch of gravitas to it. Press coverage of Villa in the run up to and in the aftermath of yesterday's game has been really good, generally, I reckon.

If you look at other forums the fawning certainly seems to be annoying some of our "rivals", which is always nice to see.

Walsall FC?, rivals that is

[AV84]

Great angle of Duran's goal in there...

[AV84]

[AV84]

Wrong thread...

[Footy-Vill]

Villa Man Utd Pundit Predictions

Win
3-1 Carragher
2-1 Merson

Draw
1-1 Lawrenson, Sutton

[Footy-Vill]

Alan Shearer:
"Aston Villa host Manchester United on Sunday, and it is a huge game, especially for the away side. Man United cannot afford to be humiliated again.

For Aston Villa, they’re at home, they’ll be looking to take the points and use the momentum from that great win over Munich in midweek.

Unai Emery has done a magnificent job at Aston Villa in terms of the whole football club, when you look at where they are at now compared to where they were when he took over. It wouldn’t surprise me if Morgan Rogers is in Lee Carsley’s future England plans. If there was one guy who was not knocking, but banging on the door, then it’s Rogers because of his start to the season. He’s a wonderful player, from when he started at Man City, then Middlesbrough and then to Villa. He’s another one who’s left a big club to go and climb the ladder, so you must respect him for that.

He’s had, without a doubt, one of the best starts of any player in the Premier League.

With Villa’s home record under Emery and the pressure that Man United are under, I’m predicting a home win on Sunday.

I think Ollie Watkins has his mojo back in terms of scoring goals and if he doesn’t perform here, then Duran will come on and score from the bench anyway, just like he did in midweek. Those two will shine again in a home win"

[dave shelley]

For anyone who hasn't seen it, check out Paul Merson on Wednesday night's live football show after Duran's goal.  Sorry I can't link but it's brilliant.