The Holy Trinity: Aston Villa conclusions from 2-0 Europa League win v Feyenoord

Villa victorious on emotional return to De Kuip

In a game in which Aston Villa should have played against ten men for 78 minutes, they didn’t. In a game in which they should have been a goal down, they weren’t.

Villa came out on top in a breathless, pulsating Europa League match against Feyenoord, winning 2-0 on a poignant return to De Kuip to take three points from their second league face match and they played well enough to warrant the victory.

Contrary to the assessment of Feyenoord head coach Robin van Persie, Villa did what they needed to do. After the match, he focused on the goal that was wrongly disallowed and would have put his team in the lead. Renowned clogger Anel Ahmedhodžić escaping a red card didn’t come up, for some reason.

The decision not to dismiss the former Sheffield United defender was irritating and it’s a relief that the referee did not, in fact, define the outcome. If he had, this was the decision that would have made the difference.

It would perhaps have been towards the harsher end of red cards for denial of an obvious goalscoring opportunity but Ahmedhodžić’s foul on Ollie Watkins met all the criteria.

Having not given a red card on the pitch, I actually don’t mind the referee sticking to his guns. I hate VAR and the reason I hate it the most is re-refereeing, so seeing the official back himself on this occasion wasn’t the sort of decision to lose sleep over.

It’s just annoying that such conviction in the face of the re-refereeing epidemic seems to happen so often in Villa matches and so infrequently elsewhere.

Anyway, here’s your Holy Trinity of match conclusions.