Aston Villa’s unbeaten start to their Champions League campaign ended last night as they lost 1-0 to Club Brugge in Belgium.
Unai Emery changed his back line as Tyrone Mings and Ian Maatsen replaced Pau Torres and Lucas Digne, who both dropped to the bench.
Boubacar Kamara was also handed his first start in the Champions League after returning from his long-term injury.
In truth, it was a poor, below-par performance from Aston Villa who struggled to deal with the Belgian side. Villa may have dominated the ball but it was the hosts who always looked likely to score first.
Hans Vanaken was unlucky not to have put Brugge ahead in the first half but his effort was pushed onto the post by Emi Martinez.
Villa’s performance was that bad, they managed just one shot on target in the opening 45 minutes compared to the host’s five efforts.
The winning goal came seven minutes after the break in the most bizarre of circumstances. Mings, making his Champions League debut, picked up the ball following Martinez passing the ball to him from a free-kick. It is not the first time we have seen Mings do this but it is the first time the referee pointed to the spot.
Vanaken stepped up to score from the spot ending his sides 14 game winless run against English sides.
Emery: His mistake is completely strange. It’s the biggest mistake I witnessed in my career.
“We can make a mistake in the build-up, we work to try and control the games through keeping possession and trying to stop the possession and we did that in the first half fantastic.
“We lost one or two balls, but we were always in the position to recover, but this mistake is very, very strange.
“It’s not for Mings or Martinez, it’s one mistake that’s strange. It’s only happened one time in all my life.”
Aston Villa will head to Anfield to take on Liverpool at the weekend as they bid to avoid losing four games in a row for the first time under Emery.
