This season, Michael Hincks is on the ground following Aston Villa’s Champions League adventure. You can stay up-to-date by subscribing here
JAN BREYDEL STADIUM — While Morgan Rogers stood in front of the garish blue billboard after full-time clutching Uefa’s Player of the Match award, Aston Villa’s real saviour gestured towards his teammate.
It looked playful, Tyrone Mings evidently as giddy as the Villa away end in Bruges, and whether this gesture was the defender suggesting he should have been given this award instead was up for interpretation.
Joking or not, Mings was right. One thing not up for interpretation was that he actually should have been holding the award instead, having completed his own redemption arc in Belgium on Tuesday night.
Four months ago, Mings did something inexplicable against Club Bruges, and he was at it again – this time saving Villa.
It was a pivotal moment in this Champions League last-16 tie, and occurred before Brandon Mechele’s own goal and Marco Asensio’s penalty made it advantage Villa heading into next week’s return leg.
Mings’ left leg seemed to defy the basics of mathematics, the defender somehow diverting Hans Vanaken’s header wide when it felt as though any touch would angle it further towards goal instead.
It should have, really. Quite how it didn’t still failed to make any sense a hundred replays later, but it proved to be a goal-line clearance for the ages, one that led to a huge away win for Villa and puts them on the brink of a quarter-final against either Liverpool or Paris Saint-Germain.
BEST GOAL-LINE CLEARANCE EVER???
Tyrone Mings stops Hans Vanaken from giving Brugge the lead in SPECTACULAR style
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Unai Emery’s side had looked stale, seemingly content with taking a draw back to Villa Park after Leon Bailey’s early opener was cancelled out by Maxim De Cuyper, but it was this intervention from Mings with 15 minutes to go that paved the way for the late show.
It was a slice of good fortune, and also a case of redemption for Mings, who picked the ball up to gift Bruges a penalty the last time these sides met in the league phase, and be it luck or skill it was a clearance all the same.
“Sometimes we needed our keeper. Sometimes we needed Tyrone Mings’ save. We can remember the match before [here] with Tyrone, today he saved [us],” Emery said.
“From the first experience he had here, today he reacted fantastic, playing focused, serious, saving with one action.
“We are demanding, I am demanding with the players, they have to be demanding with themselves [on] how we can get better. We corrected something from the [last] match we played here.”
Should Villa complete the job next week they will have to improve in the next round. Beyond the final scoreline it was a shaky night, with Bruges enjoying more of the ball and recording more shots than the visitors too.
Villa have struggled to keep clean sheets all season. Only the bottom three of Southampton, Ipswich Town and Leicester City have kept fewer than Villa’s four in the Premier League, and those domestic frailties are creeping into Europe as well.
Emery’s side had kept clean sheets against Young Boys, Bayern Munich and Bologna in their opening three Champions League games before shutting out Juventus too, but they have been decidedly less assured of late.
Constant changes hardly help, although Emery’s hand has been forced through injuries and departures.
The inclusion of loan signing Axel Disasi last night made this another new back four for Villa in the Champions League, their eighth variation in nine games, and it looked as though it would prove their downfall.
After De Cuyper’s equaliser, Bruges were the better side, often targeting Disasi at right-back as Villa looked susceptible to the counter.
However, Bruges failed to take their chances, while Villa’s three goals came from an xG of 1.38, summing up their fortunes in that regard as well.
“Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good, and Villa carried a little bit of luck tonight,” Pat Nevin wisely put it on BBC Radio 5 Live.
This is knockout football, after all, and Villa fans won’t care for xG now a trip to Paris or Liverpool is within their grasp.
Instead it was Mings’ golden touch that will be remembered fondly on the journey back to Birmingham, providing the beer wasn’t impacting supporters’ memories by that stage of the night, while addressing any issues is Emery’s job.
“The most important thing is to watch the match again,” Emery, a stickler when it comes to video analysis, added. “I know there are still 90 minutes to play.”
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