For Aston Villa, this was a thoroughly satisfying end to a difficult and yet highly memorable week. They mourned the loss of Gary Shaw, the youngest member of their 1982 European Cup-winning team, and made an impeccable return to Europe’s premier club competition. Before kick-off here there was a rousing minute’s applause for Shaw, whose family and former teammates were in attendance, and by the end a buoyant crowd celebrated a comeback victory.
It looked a long way off at half-time. With about a minute of stoppage time to run, Unai Emery had seen enough and marched down the touchline towards the tunnel with a face like thunder. He conceded Villa’s first 51 minutes was their worst showing since he took charge almost two years ago and said it was the angriest he has been as Villa manager.
At the interval he introduced Leon Bailey after John McGinn was forced off with a hamstring injury that is expected to sideline the Villa captain for weeks and Ian Maatsen replaced Lucas Digne. “We didn’t play with energy, we were a little bit passive, we planned the match to dominate and it was completely different,” he said. “It was a very poor first-half performance.”
For Wolves, who are bottom of the pile with a solitary point from their first five matches, the statistics look ominous – it is now one win in their past 15 league games dating back to last season – but Gary O’Neil stressed the importance of putting context on their start given they opened with defeats to Arsenal and Chelsea. The only problem is things do not get any easier, with home matches against Liverpool and Manchester City either side of a trip to Brentford, who have taken victory from all three of their home matches this season.
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“There needs to be some realism with the difficulty of the fixtures and the place the club has been in for the last couple of years financially,” O’Neil said. “The teams we have played are in a different spot to us in what they’re able to do. We have played an awful lot of teams that are going to finish very high up the league.”
With 72 minutes on the clock, an extremely disciplined Wolves led Villa 1-0. Matheus Cunha whipped a right-foot shot in off a post after seizing on Diego Carlos’s sloppy pass but Wolves imploded when Ollie Watkins levelled. Ezri Konsa notched what he presumably thought was the winner on 88 minutes and then the in-form Jhon Durán – yet to start a game this season – helped himself to his fourth goal of the campaign from close range.
For Wolves, a painful defeat was made worse by the centre-back Yerson Mosquera being carried off with a knee injury with 10 minutes of normal time to play. “It is an area we are already short in off the back of the transfer window and not one that we can afford to lose,” the Wolves manager said. “It doesn’t look good.”
Villa were lethargic but soon moved into familiar territory, with Emery calling Durán back from his warm-up approaching the hour. A couple of minutes later he arrived on the pitch and without touching the ball his presence seemed to cause confusion. Another Villa substitute, Ross Barkley, had a shot pinball in the box. Durán headed over from a corner and was involved in the buildup for Villa’s equaliser. Morgan Rogers seized on a loose ball about 20 yards from Sam Johnstone’s goal and shifted it to Watkins, who with Craig Dawson for company got a deflected shot away and scored with only Villa’s second shot on target.
Watkins was in the mood now. Mosquera upended the striker just after halfway and then collided with Rogers, the former requiring treatment. Villa went for the jugular and when Youri Tielemans’s recycled corner dropped at the back post, Konsa beat Mario Lemina to the punch to instinctively finish. Durán then got in on the act, converting Rogers’s low ball on the edge of the six-yard box. Wolves’ supporters headed for the exits. “The team is not all over the place or suffering badly or being ripped apart by Aston Villa at any stage in that match,” O’Neil said.
