Gombau pleased with emphatic Youth League victory

Josep Gombau was pleased with his side’s application after Aston Villa came away from their fourth UEFA Youth League outing with an impressive 6-2 victory over Club Brugge.

The Young Lions took a 3-2 lead into the half-time break after a chaotic opening period saw them twice come from behind to equalise, before the hosts we reduced to 10 players at The NEST.

Villa’s under-21 head coach explained after the game how he tries to instil the same mentality and playing philosophy into the team irrespective of the scoreline, and insisted he was pleased with how the players stuck to their task throughout.

“It was a game that had everything,” Gomabu said.

“A very typical youth football game, which had mistakes, very good actions, a red card, and I think we did a good game.

“We try to bring the mentality that they play in the same structure and with the same football, without the result, not thinking about the result.

“If we are winning, we need to keep going the same, trying to increase the goals scored, and if we are behind, just playing our football, trying to get a result.

“Not changing the structure, not changing how we approach the game for the result, because it is academy football, development football and we want to build something with them, more than the result.

“We struggled, we conceded very early in the game through a mistake, and it was ‘wow, we are losing after five or six minutes’.

“But the boys did well, we recovered, we drew [level], and we conceded a penalty with an action that was, for me, 50/50.

“After that, they get the red card and, from then, we scored before half-time, and after that, the second half was all us, with an extra man.

“I think we controlled it, and we scored four more goals that meant we won.”

Six points in their last two outings against Club Brugge and Bologna have strengthened Villa’s position for qualification to the knockout stages of the competition.

However, with two games of the league phase still remaining, against Juventus and RB Leipzig, Gombau insists he is not looking at the table, and is working on a game-by-game basis.

He added: “We will go game by game. Honestly, I didn’t even check it [the table], because what I want is to go game by game, trying to win all the games.

“We started slowly. The game at home against Bayern, we deserved more than what we got, and now, the last two, we get two wins.

“Now, it is time to have a big game against Juventus at home. I think the group, the team, the players, are growing game by game.

“This is a new group, as it is not a solid group of 21s or 18s, it is a mixed group. All these groups need time. This is four games together and this makes the team stronger.

“It will be a good challenge for all of us, this game at home against Juventus, and if we win that game, we can go through, which is something important.

“But game by game. We have two more games – Juventus and Leipzig – and we will see what happens.”