Aston Villa’s Champions League encounters have tended to be pretty dramatic and, as Jhon Duran fired home another stunner, Ross Barkley netted the winner and Emi Martinez committed a rare howler, that 3-2 win at RB Leipzig had it all.
It was a game Aston Villa were inches away from wrapping up – VAR denying them a 3-1 lead moments before Christoph Baumgartner’s stunning equaliser at the other end – yet very easily could have lost too.
A match full of calamity, quality and no shortage of good fortune. Of brilliant goals, bizarre goals, and in which the final point was made by a man who, in Ross Barkley, spent last season at Luton Town attempting to resuscitate a career which appeared to be groaning out a death rattle.
Alan Shearer, in his co-commentary role, often sounded like a man who did not know whether to praise Aston Villa’s performance or lambast it, such was the manner in which Unai Emery’s team flipped from fantastic to feeble.
John McGinn gave Villa the lead in the Red Bull Arena after just two minutes. A Leipzig side haunted by the recent 5-1 home defeat by VFL Wolfsburg appeared to be hurtling towards another steamrollering.
That was until the usually faultless Emi Martinez – two weeks after Aston Villa’s goalkeeper denied Juventus in ‘incredible’ fashion – switched off to gift Lois Openda an equaliser entirely against the run of play.
Alan Shearer slams Emi Martinez but hails Jhon Duran in Aston Villa win
“What on earth was he doing?” a bemused Shearer told Amazon Prime, Martinez seemingly waiting for the ball to bounce harmlessly into his arms as Openda nicked in.
“He just doesn’t see Openda. It is just a long, hopeful punt upfield. He comes out the box thinking the ball is going to get to him and it never does. An awful error. He just doesn’t see him coming!
“[It was] a stupid error like that inviting them back into the game. [Leipzig] hadn’t offered anything in forward positions at all. They’ve grown into the game because of that mistake so he will be really angry and really upset, Unai Emery.”
With a place in the Champions League knockout stage within their grasp, the Spaniard would have been far happier with a second-half display in which Aston Villa played with an intensity and a bravery reminiscent of their 2023/24 pomp.
Half-time substitute Jhon Duran stunned Bayern Munich with a sensational lob on matchday one. On matchday six, he repeated the trick. Leipzig goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi could only stand idly – a la Neuer all those months ago – by as Duran added another contender to his personal Goal of the Season competition.
And Newcastle legend Shearer, a man who liked a long-range pop himself during his storied playing career, could not express greater appreciation for Duran’s hit-and-hope methods.
“We said the damage he could cause [off the bench]. He sort of bends it and the dip that he gets on it…” Shearer beamed. “Great attitude. I love that when you are prepared to have a pop at goal from there.
“Have a shot, why not?”
Shearer suggests Ollie Watkins now under threat as Duran stuns RB Leipzig
While Ollie Watkins did impress during his 45 minutes on the pitch – leading the line as Ollie Watkins tends to do and only denied a goal of his own by a tight VAR call – Shearer wonders if Duran is starting to ask some pretty awkward questions of Emery.
Especially after he marked a rare start – his first of the Premier League campaign – with the winner in Saturday’s 1-0 victory over Southampton.
“Its a message to the manager; Don’t leave me out again,” Shearer adds. “When you’re given your opportunity, you’ve got to take it and he is. That is the biggest response. You’ve got every right to knock on the managers door.”
Fellow substitute Ross Barkley would line up a pot shot of his own with 85 minutes remaining. Hardly the dream first touch for Lukas Klostermann; the long-serving Leipzig veteran sending Barkley’s speculative effort spinning home and lifting Aston Villa up to third in the new-look Champions League table.
“They were asked some big questions. They gifted Leipzig back into the game,” Shearer concludes. “But the way their fought back, the way they kept going, the way the substitutes worked, it is a really positive night for Aston Villa.
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