5 min: A little bit of time on the ball for Lille, their first period of prolonged possession. They don’t do anything with it.
3 min: Rogers sends Sancho into space down the right. He cuts back for Luiz, who hammers a shot goalwards. Alexsandro blocks. The ball ricochets back off McGinn and over the bar. Alexsandro celebrates all of that like he would a goal; it’s possible Luiz’s fierce low drive was heading into the bottom right if it wasn’t for his intervention.
2 min: … but that was a fast start by Villa, and they’ve clearly been told to get right into Lille during the early exchanges. They’re first to everything at the moment. Small sample size, admittedly.
1 min: Abraham gets lively quickly. He steals the ball off a snoozing Bouaddi and feeds McGinn down the inside-left channel. McGinn attempts something spectacular from distance. It doesn’t come off, dribbling harmlessly wide right.
Lille get the ball rolling. A lot of smoke rolling around Villa Park. No pyro, no party.
