Our long awaited Europa League campaign begins tonight and we will bring you a preview of all the League stage matches now and (hopefully) in the further stages of the competition. Aston Villa will go in as favourites with the most successful Manager in Europa League history with Unai Emery winning the trophy 4 times. However things are not ideal as we will now explain.

Not the start of the season we were all hoping for. No wins in 5 Premier League games and a penalty shootout defeat in League Cup to the hands of Brentford. With accusations of slow play, players being lazy and team morale, this was not how we all imagined things would start off.

Whilst things are not going well on the pitch, they are arguably even worse off the pitch with issues with PSR and now with Monchi stepping down as Director of Football Operations, These days will not count as our greatest moments. 

Monchi’s departure has seen Emery reuniting with a trusted old friend. Roberto Olabe worked with Emery at Almeria and also was at Real Union where Emery’s Brother is president. Recently Olabe worked in the Director Of Football role at Real Sociedad and brought many star players through including Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard and Liverpool’s Alexander Isak.

This should hopefully bring some much needed confidence to our Aston Villa team as they head into Europe for a third successive season since Emery took charge in November 2022. We reached the Semi-Finals of Conference League in 2024 and Quarter-Finals of Champions League last season. Can we go one better this time?

The beginning of the League stages sees us begin at home against Bologna, in a repeat of a Champions League fixture just under a year ago which Villa won 2-0 thanks to goals from John McGinn and Jhon Duran. In that match which was Villa 3rd straight win in Champions League, Samuel lling-Junior came on for Bologna against his parent club. He is now on loan at Championship side West Bromwich Albion.

Bologna have made an average start in Serie A winning both their games at home against Como and Genoa and losing narrowly away to AS Roma and AC Milan. This will be their first successive season in Europe since the Seventies and they will provide a stern test for Villa.

Now for some positives about the Villa! We were unbeaten in Europe at Villa Park for the whole of last season in the Champions League, winning 3 and drawing 1 in the League stages. Several Aston Villa players such as John McGinn, Emi Martinez, Ollie Watkins and Ezri Konsa can push closer to Gordon Cowans’ record for most appearances in European Competitions – 28 games.

So after 3 tricky games away after the international Break, this is our chance to turn things around and really get our season going with four games before the October International break.

3 of those are at Villa Park with one away coming the following Thursday at Dutch giants Feyenoord.

So enjoy the game, be part of the pride and up the Villa!