Within touching distance of the Europa League’s final four, Aston Villa will take a two-goal lead into Thursday’s second leg of their quarter-final against Bologna.<\/p>\n
After winning 3-1 in Italy<\/strong>the Birmingham club can book their semi-final place by finishing the job back at Villa Park.<\/p>\n Kicking off their third European quarter-final in as many seasons, Aston Villa started slowly in last week’s first leg, but they survived a few scares before building a significant advantage.<\/p>\n More than a fortnight since their last competitive fixture, Villa initially rode their luck\u00a0at Stadio Dall’Ara – Bologna had a goal ruled out for offside and struck the bar – then took firm control of the tie. <\/p>\n Ezri Konsa put them ahead against the run of play, before Ollie Watkins bagged a brace either side of Jonathan Rowe’s well-taken reply for the Rossoblu. <\/p>\n Having restored their two-goal cushion with virtually the last kick, Unai Emery’s men are in a particularly strong position to progress.<\/p>\n Coached by four-time winner Emery – a proven expert at navigating the latter stages – Villa have now posted eight straight wins in UEFA’s second-tier tournament since slipping up in Deventer, where they suffered a shock loss to Go Ahead Eagles. <\/p>\n On Sunday, the 1982 continental champions met another European Cup-winning club from the Midlands, playing out an eventful Premier League draw with Nottingham Forest<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Morgan Rogers clipped the crossbar before both he and Watkins wasted good chances to claim maximum points at the City Ground, but Villa remain safely inside England’s top five<\/strong> and are on track for more Champions League football.<\/p>\n Emery’s side could soon meet Forest again in the Europa League semis, though they must first finish off Bologna.<\/p>\n Precedent suggests they should: the Villans have won 15 of their last 17 home fixtures in Europe – including all of the last eight – and they average two goals per game at Villa Park in this season’s competition.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Iconsport \/ Ipp<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Meanwhile, Bologna need a minor miracle if they are to advance to the next round, having already lost twice in Birmingham since the start of last season.<\/p>\n Across three meetings overall, Villa have outscored the Rossoblu by six goals to one, even though Vincenzo Italiano’s team were far more competitive back at the Dall’Ara.<\/p>\n Since losing 1-0 at Villa Park in September, Bologna have actually won all five away matches in Europe, but history will be stacked high against them on Thursday.<\/p>\n Only one of 67 teams have lost the first leg of a Europa League knockout tie by at least two goals at home and still gone through, and even that took place within the same city: Sevilla overcame local rivals Real Betis in 2014. <\/p>\n So, after their club-record run of 11 European games without defeat was finally halted, last year’s Coppa Italia winners face an underwhelming end to the current campaign.<\/p>\n Italiano and co are already out of the cup and they trail sixth-placed Roma by nine points in Serie A<\/strong>despite beating Lecce 2-0 last weekend.<\/p>\n With nothing to lose, Bologna will now go all-out to stage a spectacular comeback in England, where they have been beaten five times since their sole success back in 1967. <\/p>\n On that occasion, the Emilian club conquered West Bromwich Albion 3-1 at the Hawthorns – not far away from Villa Park – and a similar result is required once again.<\/p>\n Aston Villa Europa League form:<\/p>\n WWWWWW<\/p>\n Aston Villa form (all competitions):<\/p>\n W L W W W D<\/p>\n Bologna Europa League form:<\/p>\n W W W D W L<\/strong><\/p>\n Bologna form (all competitions):<\/p>\n W W L W L W<\/p>\n \u00a9 Iconsport \/ Sandra Ruhaut<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After Emi Martinez withdrew just before kickoff on Sunday<\/strong>it remains to be seen whether Aston Villa’s back-up goalkeeper Marco Bizot will continue to deputise.<\/p>\n Tyrone Mings is also a doubt, while Boubacar Kamara and Jadon Sancho are still injured and Ross Barkley is ineligible due to his omission from the UEFA squad list.<\/p>\n The latter’s absence should see either Douglas Luiz or Emi Buendia come into Emery’s starting XI.<\/p>\n Watkins and captain John McGinn are Villa’s leading scorers in this Europa League campaign with three goals apiece – both also need one more to become the club’s all-time top scorer in Europe.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Bologna forwards Federico Bernardeschi and Rowe have hit the net five and four times respectively; the latter has also attempted and completed the most dribbles in this year’s knockout rounds. <\/p>\n Also vying for selection in support of lone striker Santiago Castro, Riccardo Orsolini ended his long drought with a late strike last weekend.<\/p>\n Italiano can recall Martin Vitik – who missed the first leg through suspension – but fellow defender Jhon Lucumi will be banned on Thursday evening. <\/p>\n Both Charalampos Lykogiannis and Thijs Dallinga face fitness tests, while Benjamin Dominguez and first-choice goalkeeper Lukasz Skorupski are still sidelined.<\/p>\n Either Federico Ravaglia or teenager Massimo Pessina – who surprisingly played against Lecce – will fill in for Skorupski at Villa Park.<\/p>\n Aston Villa possible starting lineup:<\/strong><\/p>\n Bizot; Cash, Konsa, Torres, Digne; Onana, Tielemans; McGinn, Buendia, Rogers; Watkins<\/p>\n Bologna possible starting lineup:<\/strong><\/p>\n Ravaglia; Mario, Vitik, Heggem, Miranda; Moro, Freuler; Bernardeschi, Ferguson, Rowe; Castro<\/p>\n \n Although Aston Villa’s fine home record has been hit by a few recent setbacks, the hosts rarely lose a European game in B6.<\/p>\n Bologna have been much improved since a mid-season slump, but they remain vulnerable at the back and could be caught out more than once.<\/p>\n For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.<\/p>\n Within touching distance of the Europa League’s final four, Aston Villa will take a two-goal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMatch preview<\/h2>\n
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\nTeam News<\/h2>\n
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nWe say: Aston Villa 2-1 Bologna (Aston Villa win 5-2 on aggregate)<\/h2>\n
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