A mix of missed chances and mistakes cost Aston Villa on a big night against Barcelona at Camp Nou
Aston Villa's Joao Gomes
Aston Villa's Joao Gomes(Image: James Marsh/Shutterstock)
Aston Villa ultimately took valuable lessons from defeats at places like Legia Warsaw and Go Ahead Eagles, and can do the same from their loss at Camp Nou.
But goals conceded through mistakes and missed chances would surely have left a sense of frustration on the flight home from Barcelona to the Midlands.
Villa started the game in nightmare fashion as Joao Gomes blindly played the ball across his own box, allowing Lamine Yamal to intercept and find the far corner, beating Zion Suzuki.
After dropping to the ground and beating the turf in frustration, Gomes then had a chance to atone for his error just moments later when the ball fell invitingly for him inside the box at the other end from a corner, but his effort was blocked.
Indeed, Villa responded well to falling behind, especially considering the manner of Yamal’s goal, but one theme of the match was that they did not take their chances when they arrived.
Barcelona were missing several defenders through injury and also play a dangerously high defensive line, with Nicolas Jackson no doubt licking his lips before the game. In fact, before hosting Villa, Barcelona hadn’t kept a clean sheet in the Champions League for 18 games, stretching back 18 months to April 2025.
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Jackson should have done better when he reached the ball before Joan Garcia after being played in by Johan Manzambi. The two had combined for another good chance just moments earlier, with Manzambi dragging his effort wide of the far post.
Barcelona, though, had scored three or more goals in 11 of their matches this season before Tuesday night, so giving them a leg up with an early mistake was the last thing Villa needed to do. Still, Emery took some responsibility for Gomes’ mistake in his post-match press conference, insisting that the midfielder was playing as he wanted him to.
“Gomes started not very confident with the ball,” Emery said. “The mistake is part of our style, I am not blaming him. Before the mistake, he lost two balls. Today is a very good experience for him. We have made mistakes like that in four years and we always overcame those mistakes.”
Between Gomes, Ross Barkley and Leon Goretzka, each midfielder offers different qualities, not only in terms of technical ability but also temperament and perhaps even reliability in terms of fitness.
Directly replacing Youri Tielemans was never going to happen for £35 million, so Emery decided to recruit a different type of midfielder whom he could mould. However, based on the first few months of this season, there are question marks over how close Gomes can get to matching Tielemans’ on-ball ability.
Perhaps it means there will be greater dependence on Barkley’s ability to control matches, something Gomes has struggled to do at times since joining, having looked too nervous in possession, particularly at Camp Nou.
Villa’s defeat was not solely down to Gomes’ mistake - that much must be clear - because they had enough chances to be leading at half-time despite their poor start.
“When you come to places like this, you need to start well and weather the storm,” captain McGinn said on TNT Sports. “We didn’t do that tonight. They started very intensely and very fast, but even in that spell we had chances and should have made better decisions.
“When you are playing against a team like Barcelona, you don’t get a second chance. Tonight was a lesson, but there were positives to take. We have shown that we can compete at this level, but the final pass has let us down. There were times we could make the extra pass, but Barcelona made the right decisions and scored good goals.
“I think we are competitive against teams at this level, we have shown that whether it is Bayern Munich or PSG. Tonight was a huge learning curve for us and I am sure it will stand us in good stead for the future.”
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John Townley
John Townley