• 18 hours ago
RB Leipzig 2 Aston Villa 3 - Matt Maher analysis
Transcript
00:00Good evening from the Red Bull Arena where Villa claimed a victory which puts them in a really strong position to go on and claim a top 8 finish in the Champions League group phase and progress straight through to the last 16 of the competition.
00:16They won here tonight 3-2 in a chaotic game in which they led twice, were twice pegged back and then Ross Barkley with five minutes to go scored the winner, a deflected strike off Lucas Klosterman which wrong-footed Leipzig goalkeeper Peter Golasie.
00:32Both men, Barkley and Klosterman had been on the pitch only a minute or so but they obviously played a huge part then in deciding the game. Villa hanging on for the win, Ami Martinez pulling off two big saves in the closing stages.
00:47In truth, Martinez hadn't had a huge amount to do during the game, this was arguably one of Villa's best attacking performance in the Champions League so far but probably one of their worst defensive displays.
00:59They hadn't conceded a goal from open play in the Champions League until this game, they conceded two tonight and both of them were poor goals from their perspective.
01:08The first one, a terrible mix-up between Diego Carlos and Ami Martinez which allowed Luis Appenda to score. Villa had been leading that point through John McGuinn's third minute goal and it looked like only a matter of time before they added to it but they couldn't take their chances.
01:24Ollie Watkins saw a goal ruled out by VAR for offside and so did John Duran who came off the bench for Watkins in the second half. Duran had already put Villa back in front at that stage adding to another entry in his own personal competition for goal of the season.
01:43A fantastic strike from 25 yards out, again you thought Villa were going to cruise to victory then but another bit of hesitant defending, a fantastic finish from Baumgartner but Leipzig level again and from then on it still looked like Villa were more likely to get the winning goal and they did through Barkley in fortuitous circumstances but they deserved the luck.
02:07They were deserved winners, they made hard work of it so they're up to third in the Champions League table and this debut Champions League campaign is going really well.

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