For an hour, it was threatening to be another of those fruitless days for Ollie Watkins. But then, Emi Buendía, of all people, soared high to win a header and Watkins then had the composure to send a header spinning beyond Berke Ozer, caught a few yards off his goal-line. Watkins’s dry spell was over, his first goal in eight matches and only second in 13 securing Aston Villa victory in Lille.
In the end, while his side are not yet anywhere near back to their convincing, conquering best, this was a thoroughly satisfying night for Unai Emery, a first win in five matches, a feeling reinforced by the second-half arrival of the Villa captain John McGinn after two months out injured.
Emiliano Martínez, booked late on for time-wasting, will surely have savoured the win, too. The Nord Tribune, home to Lille’s ultras, promised Martínez a hellish welcome and when the Villa goalkeeper headed towards them before the start of the second half, they made their feelings known. L’Equipe labelled Martínez l’ epouvantail, “the scarecrow”. Martínez was guaranteed a white-hot reception given his antics on his last visit almost two years ago, his first since the World Cup.
Then, the Argentinian saved penalties from Benjamin André and Nabil Bentaleb, both of whom started here, in a shootout to help Villa into the semi-finals of the Conference League and picked up two yellow cards in the same match, avoiding a red card because his second, for inciting the home fans, came during the spot-kicks. The first that night was for time-wasting with 39 minutes on the clock.
Since Martínez’s previous visit, he had only stoked the fire. Last spring he arrived in Paris for a Champions League quarter-final at PSG wearing a cap showing off his World Cup triumph over France and featuring a rooster, a national symbol. And he had the Argentina flag etched into his hair. So, invariably, the locals here jeered Martínez’s every touch, including in the warmup. Emery put it diplomatically when he acknowledged Lille would “push our players in different ways”.
Barring the racket from the stands, however, this proved far from a strenuous workout, the 39-year-old Olivier Giroud’s snatched header from Tiago Santos’s dinked cross approaching the interval the hosts’ only effort of note. A minute later Martínez fumbled a Romain Perraud strike from distance, prompting Pau Torres to hack the loose ball clear.
Villa equally created very little, the Lille centre-back Aissa Mandi smelling the danger after a rare incisive sequence on the half-hour; the roaming Morgan Rogers supplied Amadou Onana, a former Lille midfielder, and his cute cross was arcing towards Watkins at the back post when Mandi intervened to divert the ball clear for a corner.
Lille introduced the highly regarded 18-year-old Ayyoub Bouaddi at the interval but the game resumed a familiar shape. Lucas Digne, another former Lille player, sent a throw-in straight to the feet of Tiago Santos. Both teams were too easy to read but then, out of nothing, Villa grasped the lead. Ezri Konsa pinged a diagonal ball upfield 40 yards, Buendía out-jumped Chancel Mbemba to win the header and Watkins seized his window of opportunity, cushioning a looping header over the exposed Ozer.
