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Given what had gone before, Unai Emery stressed afterwards, this was a significant victory and a deeply satisfying takeaway for Aston Villa.
In meetings with his squad, he referenced how none of the six Premier League teams in the Champions League last 16 had triumphed this week and as many as four of them may have suffered irrecoverable damage. Then there were the memories of Villa coming here two years ago, when they almost came unstuck in the Conference League quarter-finals, when Emiliano Martínez re-announced himself as public enemy No 1 and made two penalty shootout saves.
In the end, while his side were far from their convincing best, this was a welcome first win in five matches, Ollie Watkins’s clever header the difference. The sense of a feel-good factor was only enhanced by the second-half arrival of the Villa captain John McGinn after two months out with a knee injury.
Lille, who are sixth in Ligue 1, struggled to penetrate the visitors and, despite only departing with a slender advantage, from here Villa are surely in the box-seat to advance to the Europa League quarter-finals.
“With the experiences yesterday in Europe for English teams it was very important how we responded,” Emery said. “We used it as an example and every circumstance is different but yesterday it was really a case of: wow, how difficult the English teams found it in Europe. The Premier League we can say, maybe, is the best league, the strongest and most difficult league with the best teams but it’s difficult to fight in Europe and I am aware of it.”
For an hour, it was threatening to be another of those fruitless days for Watkins. But then, Emi Buendía, of all people, soared high to win a header and Watkins had the composure to send a clever header spinning beyond Berke Ozer, caught a few yards off his goal-line.
Watkins’s dry spell was over, his first goal in eight matches, and only his second in 13, securing the victory.
Martínez, booked late on for time-wasting, will surely have savoured the win, too. The Nord Tribune, home to Lille’s ultras, promised Martínez a hellish welcome and every time he touched the ball, they made their feelings known.
L’Equipe labelled Martínez l’ epouvantail, “the scarecrow”. The Argentina goalkeeper was guaranteed a white-hot reception given his antics on his last visit, his first since the World Cup final against France in Qatar.
Barring the racket from the stands, however, this was not too strenuous a workout, Olivier Giroud’s header from Tiago Santos’s dinked cross approaching the interval the hosts’ only effort of note. Villa equally created very little, the Lille centre-back Aissa Mandi smelling the danger after a rare incisive sequence on the half-hour; the roaming Morgan Rogers supplied Amadou Onana, a former Lille midfielder, and his cute cross was arcing towards Watkins at the back post when Mandi intervened to divert the ball clear for a corner.
Lille introduced the 18-year-old Ayyoub Bouaddi at the interval but the game resumed a familiar shape. Lucas Digne, another former Lille player, sent a throw-in straight to the feet of Tiago Santos. Both teams were too easy to read but then, out of nothing, Villa grasped the lead.
Ezri Konsa pinged a diagonal ball upfield 40 yards, Buendía out-jumped Chancel Mbemba to win the header and Watkins seized his window of opportunity, cushioning a looping header over the exposed Ozer.
Villa ultimately prospered from their first and only shot on target, though Watkins spurned the chance to double his and his team’s advantage seven minutes after scoring. It seemed he had done the hard part when, freed superbly by Douglas Luiz, he galloped through on goal but rather than take aim one v one he sought perfection and attempted to round Ozer.
It did not matter that he made a mess of the chance, Villa eking out victory and Emery had his 100th as Villa manager.
Not that Emery gets hung up on those kinds of landmarks. “It’s done, everything I did is done,” he said. “I want to play against Manchester United on Sunday, next week against Lille. The Europa League is one of our priorities along with the Premier League.
“We are now in March, a key moment and it’s key how we face each game. The players must focus strongly on the moment we are in.”
