With Unai Emery’s side holding a 2-1 lead from the first leg, we look ahead to this Europa Conference League quarter-final second leg with our Lille vs Aston Villa prediction and preview.
Lille vs Aston Villa Stats: The Quick Hits
- The Opta supercomputer makes Lille very slight favourites to win on the night (37.3%), but still expects Aston Villa to reach the semi-finals of the Europa Conference League.
- Goals from Ollie Watkins and John McGinn gave Villa a 2-1 win in the first leg last week.
- The Premier League side have never won an away game against a French team in European competition (D2 L1).
Match Preview
After a very impressive win against Premier League title challengers Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday, Aston Villa head into their UEFA Europa Conference League quarter-final second leg high in spirits and confidence.
The Opta supercomputer makes Villa the favourites to win the competition, with Unai Emery’s side going all the way in 34% of its simulations. That is up from 25.9% prior to last week’s 2-1 first-leg win over Lille at Villa Park.
Lille will be looking to make history and progress from a two-legged major European tie when losing in the first leg for the first time. It doesn’t bode well that they have lost their last two home games against English sides, with both of these coming against Chelsea in the Champions League (2019 and 2022).
Having said that, Aston Villa don’t have a great record travelling to France. They have failed to win any of their three away games against French teams in European competition (D2 L1), with this their first such match since a 1-1 draw at Lille in the 2002 UEFA Intertoto Cup.
Villa’s Ollie Watkins opened the scoring in the first leg, and has scored in four of his last five appearances in the Europa Conference League this season, with only Harry Kane (7) and Phil Foden (5) recording more goals than Watkins (4) among Englishmen in major European competition this season.
Lille’s Jonathan David has scored 23 goals in all competitions this season but was kept relatively quiet by Villa last week, recording just one attempt at goal. The Canada international has scored 2.5 goals fewer than expected in the Europa Conference League this season (3 goals, 5.5 xG), the highest negative difference of any player in the competition. He has also missed the most big chances in the Conference League this term (7/10).
John McGinn recorded a goal and assist in last Thursday’s clash, and has the most goal contributions among all Aston Villa players in the Europa Conference League this season (3 goals, 3 assists).
Lille vs Aston Villa Head-to-Head
In the previous three meetings between these two, both teams have one victory each. In their two-legged Intertoto Cup tie in 2002, a 1-1 first-leg draw in France was followed by a 2-0 Lille win at Villa Park.
Last Thursday’s first leg in England saw Villa win 2-1 thanks to goals from Watkins and McGinn, though a late header from Bafodé Diakité left things finely poised ahead of the return leg in France.
Recent Form
Aston Villa are unbeaten in their last eight games in the Europa Conference League this season (W6 D2); should they avoid defeat in Lille, Villa will equal their longest unbeaten streak in Europe (9 games in a row in March-November 1982 when they won their lone European Cup).
Emery’s men have been quite inconsistent recently, winning four, drawing three and losing two of their last nine games in all competitions. They did follow up last week’s win against Lille by upsetting title-challenging Arsenal at the Emirates, with Leon Bailey and Watkins scoring late in a 2-0 win.
Last week’s loss to Villa ended a run of seven games without defeat for Lille, though they come into this one relatively fresh after not playing at the weekend.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Thursday night, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Lille vs Aston Villa Prediction
The Opta supercomputer does not believe there is much between these two. That’s understandable given how even the first leg was, despite Villa taking a one-goal advantage with them to France. Lille are very narrow favourites to win on the night inside 90 minutes, but Villa remain strongly backed to make it through the tie. The supercomputer has them at 74.0% to advance.
Villa are given a 35.7% chance of winning again inside 90 minutes, while a draw will also see them go through on aggregate and the supercomputer sees that happen in 27.0% of its 10,000 simulations.
Lille will need to win in 90 minutes to have a chance of going through, and they do so in 37.3% of sims, though they make it through to the semi-finals just 26.0% of the time.
Lille vs Aston Villa UECL Squads
Lille: Adam Jakubech, Ousmane Touré, Yusuf Yazici, Samuel Umtiti, Ivan Cavaleiro, Vito Mannone, Lucas Chevalier, Andrej Ilic, Ichem Ferrah, Trévis Dago, Tiago Morais, Bafodé Diakité, Adam Ounas, Nabil Bentaleb, Adame Faiz, Rémy Cabella, Leny Yoro, Benjamin André, Edon Zhegrova, Mohamed Ezzarhouni, Jonathan David, Ayyoub Bouaddi, Ismaily, Aaron Malouda, Ignacio Miramón, Rafael Fernandes, Gabriel Gudmundsson, Tiago Santos, Hákon Haraldsson, Lisandru Olmeta, Tom Negrel, Lilian Baret, Alexsandro Ribeiro, Angel Gomes.
Head Coach: Paulo Fonseca
Aston Villa: Emiliano Martínez, Joe Gauci, Robin Olsen, Filip Marschall, James Wright, Matty Cash, Diego Carlos, Ezri Konsa, Lucas Digne, Pau Torres, Álex Moreno, Clément Lenglet, Ben Chrisene, Sil Swinkels, Jayden Barber, Josh Feeney, Aaron O’Reilly, Frankie Ealing, Finley Munroe, Douglas Luiz, John McGinn, Youri Tielemans, Jacob Ramsey, Tim Iroegbunam, Boubacar Kamara, Edward Rowe, Taylor-Jay Hart, Ajani Burchall, Tommi O’Reilly, Travis Patterson, Kyrie Pierre, Kadan Young, Ollie Watkins, Moussa Diaby, Nicolo Zaniolò, Jhon Durán, Morgan Rogers, Leon Bailey
Head Coach: Unai Emery
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