A win’s a win but teams at the very highest level don’t put performances in like we did in the second half.
A top team would have put five or six past them tonight.
We're on the way back to the top. There will be nights when we only win semi-comfortably. It's a hardship, I know.
That was a heavily rotated team that was without Khusanov, Rodri, Ait-Nouri, O'Reilly, Cherki, Marmoush, Foden, Reijnders, etc. And then lost Gonzalez to injury.
In past seasons we've gone away in Europe and put in less convincing performances only to end up winning trophies in May.
In 23-24 we scraped past Red Star Belgrade, conceded an equaliser to Young Boys, and weren't that convincing against Leipzig.
We drew away at Copenhagen in 2022-23, lost away to Leipzig in 2021-22, and only got a narrow 1-0 win against Olympiakos in 2020.
Teams in Europe are no mugs. Villarreal are 3rd in La Liga and hadn't lost at home in seven months. Just take the win and be happy.