John McGinn kickstarts Aston Villa’s season with victory against Bologna

At last, a first win of the season for Aston Villa. They made harder work of it than they might have done against limited opponents, and there were rather more nervous moments than there probably should have been, but a win’s a win, and after the start to the season Villa have had, that’s the most important thing.

It is only just over five months since Villa Park last hosted European football, but it feels a lifetime ago. That was the Champions League quarter-final as Villa mounted a rousing fightback against Paris Saint-Germain that, although it fell short, rattled the eventual champions.

Coming after a series of memorable European nights – the win against Bayern, the victory in Leipzig, the last-16 demolition of Club Brugge – there was a clear sense then that that was where Villa belonged, and there seemed little reason to think they could not become Champions League regulars.

Emi Martínez’s red card at Old Trafford and Villa’s subsequent defeat on the final day of last season thrust them into the Europa League, engendering a sense of anti-climax that hasn’t yet gone away. Only six players who started against PSG also started against Bologna on Thursday, while Monchi, the sporting director, resigned on Tuesday.

Nobody really thinks they are in relegation trouble but, equally, a start that has seen them take just three points and score just one goal in their first five games has come as a reminder that nothing in the Premier League can be taken for granted.

The hope perhaps was that the sniff of Europe, even the secondary competition, could awake something in Villa and, up to a point, it did. Evann Guessand had already drawn a sharp low save from Lukasz Skorupski when John McGinn put them ahead after 13 minutes, squeezing his shot from 20 yards between a defensive leg and the post with the keeper unsighted.

John McGinn delivers his distinctive celebration after his early goal. Photograph: Aston Villa/Aston Villa FC/Getty Images

It was his fourth European goal from outside the box since the beginning of 2023-24, more than any other player in that period, and, if that makes it baffling Bologna afforded him so much space, some mitigation was provided by the way everybody momentarily froze after Morgan Rogers’s air-shot.

Bologna have themselves begun the season slowly after a little more squad turnover than they might have liked. Until the final 20 minutes against Genoa on Saturday goals had been a problem for them, but they had conceded only three in their four league games to date, a stat that exposes just what a gulf currently exists between the Premier League and Serie A. Villa had a clear physical advantage and, as a result, looked a far more threatening side than they have domestically.

Ollie Watkins’ penalty is saved by Lukasz Skorupski. Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPA

Donyell Malen had had a couple of chances but remains without a goal for Villa since his hot spell of three in three games in early April; he was removed for Ollie Watkins just before the hour. And as the second goal failed to materialise, anxiety began to bubble to the surface.

There might have been rather more of it had Bologna given any indication that they might be able to work out a way of breaking the Villa offside trap. Watkins made an immediate impression, only a last-gasp challenge from Martin Vitik preventing him meeting a low cross from Guessand, whose pace on the right had come to seem Villa’s most plausible route to a goal that might have settled nerves.

As it turned out, Villa were gifted a golden chance to equalise by another moment of Bologna paralysis, everybody hesitating as the ball rolled close to the arm of a prone Watkins. That allowed Villa to regain possession and as Watkins ran through, he was clipped by Vitik.

Watkins’s penalty, though, was dreadful, low and slow and straight down the middle, allowing Skorupski to kick away. The result, inevitably, was pressure. Santiago Castro headed against the bar and then, from a left-wing free-kick Jens Odgaard headed against Marco Bizot, who found himself in no man’s land but at least was able to starfish himself to make the block.

From then on, the game essentially had two states: the ball bobbling in and around the Villa box to a soundtrack of nervous grumbling, and Rogers getting annoyed either himself or Jadon Sancho, who had come off the bench for Emi Buendía to make his Villa debut, as Villa squandered another counterattacking opportunity, as growls of frustration ran around the stands.

Villa’s Europa League campaign is up and running with a win, but they remain a long way from the heights of last season.