Presumably some time between making another play for Marco Asensio and the Paris Saint-Germain forward pitching up on loan in February, Unai Emery, or at least Aston Villa’s administrative staff, sifted through the small print of Uefa’s regulations in case this very scenario presented itself. Less than three months after replacing Kvara Kvaratskhelia at Parc des Princes in a Ligue 1 draw against Reims, Asensio faces the unusual but not unprecedented challenge of trying to knock his parent club out of the Champions League, the competition PSG crave so badly.
Villa were on the other end of this peculiarity in October, though the stakes were nowhere near as high. When Bologna came to Birmingham, they arrived with a Villa player in their ranks. With Villa leading 2-0, coasting towards a victory that maintained their 100% start to the league phase, Samuel Iling-Junior entered late on to gentle applause from all sides. It was the 21-year-old’s first appearance at Villa Park – albeit for the visitors – and it could prove his last given Iling-Junior, who signed from Juventus last summer as part of the package that saw Douglas Luiz depart, joined Middlesbrough on loan in February.
