THRILLER AT THE VILLA
With the bin workers of Birmingham having been on strike for more than a month, we can but wonder what the players of Paris Saint-Germain made of the stuffed polythene sacks of stinking rubbish piled high and lining the streets as their coach wended its way towards Villa Park last night. After going 2-0 down on the night to trail 5-1 on aggregate with little over an hour to play, the players of Aston Villa might have been excused for downing tools too, withdrawing their labour from this season’s Bigger Cup in order to focus on qualifying for next season’s by expending as little energy as possible before Saturday’s qualification six-pointer against Newcastle in the Premier League.
Not a bit of it. Having pulled a goal back through Youri Tielemans (5-2 on agg) before the break, Villa finally silenced the hypnotic pounding of the drum in the away end courtesy of a fine strike by John McGinn (5-3!), with Ezri Konsa adding another (5-4!!) two minutes later. While the big-name egomaniacs may be long gone from PSG, the ghosts of utterly humiliating Bigger Cup capitulations seemed all too present. On this occasion, finally, they got over the line, due in no small part to the goalkeeping heroics of Gianluigi Donnarumma and a crucial late, late block by defender Willian Pacho.
Fourth from bottom of the Premier League table with two wins from 10 games when Unai Emery was appointed two-and-a-half years ago, what seemed a promising season for Villa now lies in ruins, with just a top-five finish and a first FA Cup victory in 68 years to play for. “I am very proud of everything we did,” said Emery, whose touchline B-boy moves in the face of one near miss would have been the envy of Aussie breakdancer Raygun. “To get to this level is the best step forward to get to where I want to be with Aston Villa.”
While he is far too much of a gentleman to say so, as the manager of a PSG side who somehow contrived to spaff a four-goal Bigger Cup lead against a Barcelona team overseen by the French side’s current boss, Luis Enrique, Emery would have enjoyed nothing more than putting one over on his former club, but sadly his side came up this short. “I don’t think this team has been so dominated by another team in that way, but this opponent has to take risks because they were going out of the competition,” said Luis Enrique afterwards. “They attacked with great intensity and we were playing in front of a great crowd too.” A great crowd comprised largely of people still daring to dream as the season winds down. Of silverware, of further Bigger Cup adventures next season and the successful negotiations that could lead to their unsightly household refuse mountains finally being collected and transported to the local landfill.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Rob Smyth for live Bigger Cup coverage of Real Madrid 3-1 Arsenal (3-4 agg), while Michael Butler takes in Inter 1-2 Bayern Munich (3-3 agg, aet, 4-5 on pens). Or you can join Taha Hashim for Newcastle 3-1 Crystal Palace in the Premier League, a game Sky are calling the only football match on tonight (kick-off 7.30pm BST).
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Onana will play tomorrow. As a coach and also as a former player, I try to do things that can help a player in this situation. Sometimes we talk about managing players physically. We have to manage them also mentally, but then they have to return to competition and Onana is ready. He had one weekend that I felt it was better for him to not play” – Ruben Amorim confirms André Onana will return for Manchester United’s Bigger Vase second leg tie against Lyon after being, er, rested for Sunday’s shellacking at Newcastle.
after newsletter promotion
“It was rather sickening to see yet another entitled billionaire throwing their weight around in public, this time by publicly berating and lecturing Birmingham City’s players (yesterday’s email edition), probably enacting his tough guy routine for the accompanying Amazon Prime documentary cameras. If I was one of those demoralised and humiliated players, I’d be very tempted to tell Tom Wagner exactly where to shove his patronising and disrespectful rant. Then in the inevitable unfair dismissal hearing, also filmed by Amazon, use this guy for the statutory staff support representation” – Steve Malone.
“Re: Noble Francis’ letter (yesterday’s Daily): I shall be one of 1,057 pedants to point out that David Moyes’s Premier League win rate at West Ham was 37% of 198 games. Perhaps more pertinently, he managed only two wins from the first 10 games of his second spell before Covid intervened. Could it be that Graham Potter (three wins from 12 games) needs more time before being compared to the marvellous Moyesiah?” – David Moy Paul Billyard (and no others).
“Further to Tom Fleuriot’s excellent World Cup idea (yesterday’s letters), why not let the game’s global stars play for both club AND country. That’s the way to properly knacker folks. Who doesn’t want to see, say, Mo Salah play for Egypt and Liverpool in the same tournament, switching his shirt at half-time if they play one another?” – Mike Wilner.
Send letters to [email protected]. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … Mike Wilner. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we have them, can be viewed here.