Football Daily | Why Aston Villa are all set to salvage the Premier League’s rough European week

4 hours ago 6

SEÑOR FLORERO GRANDE’S TIME TO SHINE

After Aston Villa shocked the world last week by doing the unthinkable as an English team by winning away in Europe, on Thursday they have the chance of following that up by securing a place in the last eight of the Europa League. The road to Istanbul is paved with claret because they have Unai Emery at the helm, a man who knows a thing or two about winning a second tier competition. Mr Big Vase, or Señor Florero Grande, as he’s known in Spain, has won the competition four times, three with Sevilla and once with Villarreal. He failed to do so with Arsenal for a simple reason: their name does not include V-I-L-L-A, which was surely his downfall and why they lost to Chelsea in the 2019 final.

There is almost no way Emery and his Villans are not on an open top bus come the end of May. Lille’s players will leave their cattle behind with some degree of hope but with the irritating feeling that the lack of a V and A within their name will cost them dearly. It is absolutely impossible for the French side to meddle with destiny, Señor Florero Grande is still at the top of his game, not worrying about Big Cup or any of that nonsense, the Premier League is a mere sideshow for what he wants to achieve in life and that is to have a mantelpiece stocked with floral bouquets in ceramics in his Spanish bungalow.

Villa have lost four of their past six games, only scoring five goals in the process but that will not concern Emery, who has lost only once in his past 24 Big Vase outings. “He is a manager who has a reputation of getting over the finish line,” roared captain John McGinn. “We don’t want to be a maybe team, we want something to show for it. We know we’ve got an expectation, we’re one of the favourites to win the competition, we know that.”

Lille still have a 39-year-old Olivier Giroud leading the line, having returned to his homeland following an extended holiday in Los Angeles. Admittedly, he once helped down Emery in Baku to ruin his Gunners Big Vase dreams but history will not be repeated in B6. Lille’s dugout dweller Bruno Génésio has been a head coach for more than a quarter of a century but has never won a jar, let alone a full-blown vase. History and Ollie Watkins on Emery’s side – there is nothing that can stop fate ... except maybe a name change.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“This is a travesty; this decision is based on absolutely nothing. It has no legal foundation … We will not back down. Senegalese people should have no doubt. The truth is on Senegal’s side, the law is on Senegal’s side” – Abdoulaye Seydou Sow, secretary general of the Senegalese football federation, on Caf’s decision to strip Senegal of the Africa Cup of Nations title and award it to Morocco. Senegal are to appeal to the court of arbitration for sport.

Senegal’s Sadio Mané holds the trophy aloft after the Africa Cup of Nations final in January

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