Comment: Europa League has the potential to ignite Aston Villa's season for the second time
The Europa League has already brought Villa’s season to life once.
Unai Emery will now hope the return of his favourite competition can again reignite a campaign dangerously on the slide.
No manager knows better how to win the Europa League than Emery, who is aiming to do so for the fifth time in his career.
Just at this moment, however, there is a sense any victory in any match will do for the Spaniard as he looks to pull his Villa team from their alarming slump.
It was a similar story when their European campaign began back in September.
Villa hosted Bologna in the opening match of the competition’s group phase, having failed to win any of the season’s first six matches.
A John McGinn goal was enough to earn a 1-0 victory and spark a run which saw them win 22 of the next 27 games in all competitions, including at one point a club record equalling 11 straight.
From those great heights, Villa have recently come back down to earth. They visit Lille on Thursday night for the first leg of a last-16 tie having won just one of their last seven matches in all competitions and none of the last four, a sequence which has seen them exit the FA Cup and slip out of the Premier League’s top-three for the first time since December.
