It was the 57th minute when Unai Emery made a series of small circles with his hands as the pulses of everyone else in this stadium began to race that little bit quicker. Emery tapped his temples, reminding his Aston Villa players to stay focused, but, really, who was he kidding? Ezri Konsa had just side-footed a shot in off a post to earn Villa the lead on the night and, with the help of a tail wind from the Holte End, this stadium felt liftoff. And not for the first time. The noise was so loud and the atmosphere so fervent that it seemed worth checking on the foundations of this grand old ground.
Villa won the match and, though they lost the tie, this was a night they will always remember. It is also an evening when, once they have fully digested the drama of rousing from 5-1 down on aggregate, they will surely reflect on the strides they have made, particularly under Emery. Villa inadvertently did so with an amusing faux pas in the moments before kick-off: someone presumably pressed the wrong button as the Europa and Conference League walk-on music boomed instead of the operatic Champions League anthem as the players lined up on the pitch.
