Champions League Round of 16, 1st leg: Club Brugge 1 (De Cuyper 12) Aston Villa 3 (Baily 3, Mechele 82 OG, Asensio 88 pen)
Unai Emery knew what he was getting when he signed Marco Asensio: a three-time Champions League winner, for starters, but a high-pedigree star capable of bending games to his will. Just as Emery was getting hot under the collar on another awkward night at Club Brugge, the Aston Villa manager booked for voicing his frustrations pitchside, a rare moment of quality snatched this game away from the hosts.
The mere presence of Asensio and Ollie Watkins seemed to spook Brandon Mechele into diverting Morgan Rogers’s superb cross into his own net and then Christos Tzolis clumsily chopped down Matty Cash and Asensio sent the subsequent penalty past Simon Mignolet. The cold reality is Villa toiled despite a dream start on their return to Belgium but it is hard to argue a two-goal advantage is not a sizeable buffer before next Wednesday’s second leg.
For Villa and Tyrone Mings this was a return to the scene of the crime. It was in the league-phase meeting between these sides in November when Mings gifted Brugge a penalty after inexplicably picking the ball up after failing to recognise Emiliano Martínez had restarted play with a goal-kick. Hans Vanaken scored the subsequent spot-kick, the only goal of the game.
No wonder, then, that the home supporters heartily cheered Mings’s inclusion in Villa’s starting line-up when the teams were read aloud for the first time before kick-off. With Andrés García ineligible and Cash only deemed fit enough for the bench, Emery again rejigged things in defence, with Chelsea loanee Axel Disasi moving to right-back, allowing Ezri Konsa to partner Mings in the middle.
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Given the freakish nature of defeat last time here, a fast start was most welcome. Only 136 seconds into this match Villa stunned this dilapidated concrete jungle on the outskirts of beautiful Bruges. Mings, of course, was involved. He got above defender Joel Ordóñez to knock down a dinked Youri Tielemans free-kick and Bailey arrived on to the ball like a flash, charging towards the penalty spot and stroking the ball in with his left foot on the volley.
Mings presumably heard the prematch pantomime cheers and wagged his index finger in the direction of the ardent Brugge fans behind Mignolet’s goal. Still, surely Bailey’s easy strike would settle Villa down, prevent them from any silliness amid a potential panicked search for an opener?
It all looked promising from a Villa perspective, the sporting revenge the captain John McGinn alluded to well within sight. The thing about November’s defeat was Mings’s bizarre error probably concealed how poor Villa were as a team that night; it was tantamount to a no-show.
Emery has new toys now. Marcus Rashford, who started off the left flank here, saw a shot blocked after drifting into the right channel after a neat give-and-go with Bailey. Rogers and Watkins almost combined with Brugge’s backline strewn high upfield. Then, into the 12th minute, Raphael Onyedika flipped a hopeful pass over the top of Disasi and the visitors unravelled. Tzolis drove at an uncomfortable Disasi and cut the ball back for Maxim De Cuyper, who, unmarked, coolly rolled a clean but unremarkable shot into the far corner.
It was too easy. Emery went berserk on the touchline as Tielemans surrendered possession cheaply on halfway. Tzolis had another go at Disasi but this time the Frenchman nicked the ball and – just about – came out on top. It did not seem a great coincidence that Cash, absent since Villa triumphed against Chelsea, was sent to warm up midway through the first half. Lucas Digne ran the ball out of play under routine pressure from Ferran Jutglà and soon afterwards Martínez prevented Brugge seizing the lead, instinctively repelling Chemsdine Talbi’s effort at the back post.
To the same end Emery’s quadruple substitution shortly after the hour spoke to another pale performance. Cash, Boubacar Kamara, Jacob Ramsey and Asensio entered in place of Disasi, McGinn, Bailey and Rashford. By that point Onyedika sent a shot billowing towards Martínez and before that Mings made a much-needed intervention.
Asensio had four goals from his past three appearances, last Friday’s double against Cardiff booking Villa’s FA Cup quarter-final spot, and he almost immediately added to his tally. The former Real Madrid forward forced Mignolet into a fine save after meeting Ramsey’s squared pass in the box before Cash skied the rebound.
Brugge flew up the other end on the counterattack and went close seconds later. Tzolis dug a cross towards the back post and Vanaken, left alone in the box, guided his header just past the far post, Mings throwing his body towards the goalline as a contingency. A few minutes later the lively Tzolis made a mess of a chance from the edge of the six-yard box after wriggling between Konsa and Cash. Brugge would be punished for their profligacy. – Guardian
