Matt Maher on Aston Villa's third Champions League victory

Matt Maher gives his reaction to Aston Villa's latest Champions League victory.

Transcript

00:00Good evening from Villa Park. Another fantastic night for Unai Emery's team in the Champions League.

00:08He finished Villa 2, Bologna 0 and Villa for 24 hours at least are top of the Champions League.

00:14That huge 36 team table in Europe's elite competition.

00:18They are looking down on the likes of Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus.

00:25Villa are the only team to have recorded three wins from three games so far.

00:30They've scored six goals. They've conceded none.

00:33While this game against Bologna didn't have quite the same emotion as their first game in the competition against young boys

00:38or of course that night against Bayern Munich earlier this month.

00:42In terms of a team that look like they're just at home now at this level, this was really, really impressive.

00:492-0 win and you never really felt that Villa got out of second or third gear.

00:53Yep, it took them a while to score. It was 55 minutes before John McGinn broke the deadlock.

00:59His free kick evading everybody in the box and ended up in the bottom corner.

01:03And then John Duran of course, he started today in place of Oli Watkins and he scored.

01:08Of course, he usually does. Seventh goal of the season.

01:11Villa could have been in front before they broke the deadlock.

01:14Morgan Rodgers denied in the first half by the goalkeeper who also denied.

01:18McGinn and Villa played well in patches and around the box but just couldn't quite find the finishing touch.

01:24And once they'd gone ahead, they coasted really.

01:27They cruised it through the last 25 minutes of the game.

01:29They could have perhaps scored a couple more.

01:31But against a good Bologna team who played really well at Liverpool

01:34and perhaps unlucky not to get something at Liverpool, this was a really kind of comfortable win.

01:38And the question now, the nine points from three matches,

01:41is not whether Villa are going to make it through to the knockout stages of the competition.

01:45It's whether they can finish in the top eight and go straight through to the last 16.

01:49They've got five games to go.

01:51They probably need to win perhaps three out of five to guarantee a top eight finish

01:55but they are definitely now in that hunt.

01:58And this season, the first two months, it's looking like another really strong season for Villa

02:03and it really is a question of how far can they go.

02:07John McGinn said after the game he feels they're building something amazing

02:11and you can't really argue.

02:13It feels something special is bubbling here.