It wasn’t the ideal start to our Europa Conference League campaign on Thursday night, as Aston Villa suffered a 3-2 defeat at Legia Warsaw.
Despite twice fighting back from behind, Villa ultimately ended up on the losing side as we fell to a disappointing loss on our return to European football.
READ MORE: Villa player ratings vs Legia Warsaw: Key quartet poor in disappointing defeat
First-half goals from Jhon Duran and Lucas Digne had provided hope that we would eventually turn it around and secure all three points, but it ultimately wasn’t to be as we’ll have to learn lessons from the experience and be better moving forward.
Villa’s focus will now quickly switch to Chelsea on Sunday, but a response will undoubtedly now be needed when we host Zrinjski Mostar on October 5 at Villa Park.
Did Emery get his rotation decision wrong?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but for a difficult opening game away from home, did Emery get his selections wrong for this one?
The environment and atmosphere perhaps called for Pau Torres, Matty Cash and Douglas Luiz to also start to keep our strong core and first-choice defence intact, and that may have given us a solid foundation on which we could have built on to get the win.
Rotation will be necessary this season and everyone has to step up when called upon and play their part, but this arguably wasn’t the right occasion to make those specific changes as we needed a solid spine to depend on.
Players given opportunity didn’t perform
That said, we have quality and experience in this squad, and those who came into the side in Warsaw let Emery down to an extent as they didn’t produce the desired level of performance.
From Calum Chambers and Clement Lenglet in defence to Youri Tielemans in midfield, it simply wasn’t good enough as we looked vulnerable defensively throughout and lacked control and composure in midfield.
If those individuals want to be prominent figures this season and not spend much of the campaign on the bench, they’ll have to be better, and Emery will demand more as this wasn’t up to the standard required as he tries to build a structure and way of playing regardless of personnel changes.
Boost having Ramsey return
On a more positive note, it was great to see Jacob Ramsey return from injury and feature in the second half.
Albeit there was concern at times given his apparent quick return to the pitch having only recently resumed group training, he showed good signs with his runs down the left side and dangerous cut-back crosses.
While he also swiped at a good chance late on to level things at 3-3, the sooner the left-sided Ramsey-Alex Moreno tandem is restored the better, as they provide so much quality and influence in both phases of the game.
Defensive improvement needed on the road
After conceding five goals at Newcastle Utd, three goals at Liverpool and now three in Warsaw, Villa’s defensive solidity has to improve away from home.
A key aspect of our improved away form last season was the ability to control possession and tempo and play at our pace while simultaneously nullifying the opposition’s threat.
We must get back to that preferred style of play, even against top sides and in difficult environments, and that will hopefully not only cut down the goals conceded, but also lead to more positive results away to compliment our home form.
Learning experience for players, long way to go
While many of the players in the squad have either played European football at club level or featured at international level, this is still a new experience for many.
In turn, the whole trip will be an important learning curve for them, and there is still a long way to go in our Europa Conference League campaign for them to put things right.
It’s vital we learn lessons on where we went wrong and how to better implement and execute our game-plan, and with five group games to go, it’s hoped that we see a significant improvement moving forward to ultimately achieve our initial objective of advancing to the knockout stage.
