Calm heads and Europe's back: Club Brugge at the Jan Breydel Stadium

I remember how last season started and it wasn’t great. But even then, I knew it would come good because of who we have as manager. And then we ended the season with silverware.

You’d think some would factor this in. I understand it’s frustrating and we’ve lost the spine of our side but the spine was getting old. The spine is now quite young.

That written, we’ve lost Leon Goretzka because he’s not ready for the Premier League and he was I think the oldest player we brought in. But I have faith that when he comes back it will be well worth the wait.

And all things Aston Villa point to it turning out good again and it’s not hard to come to that thinking, so I really don’t understand why there is so much madness going on at the moment. I mean I sort of do, but knowing what we know why are some acting this way?

And we have a good chance to fix all of this later this afternoon as Champions League football is back and we all know Unai loves European football. But if things don’t go as hoped, we still need to stay calm, pick ourselves up and put things into perspective and I know even as I write this that it will annoy some and it wouldn’t happen with those that I’m writing about.

Despite what some would have you think, it really is a great time to be an Aston Villa fan and this season is going to get better and better. And you know what, I’m already looking forward to next season.

And as supporters, that’s the approach I believe we have to have. It’s never about just the next game, it’s about building something special and we’ve gone through one of the biggest rebuilds I remember this summer.

And that we’re actually doing this is exciting and if you let it, it’s going to be a lot of fun.

But this post is about Club Brugge and this is going to be fun because we’ve played them three times recently with an aggregate score of 6-2. And don’t forget it’s an early kick off!

Our teams did look very different when we played them before, but that’s what happens in football and why it’s exciting. Live long and prosper!

Match facts from the BBC

• All three of the meetings between these two teams came in Aston Villa’s most recent UEFA Champions League campaign (2024-25). Club Brugge won their league phase meeting in that campaign (1-0), but lost both legs in the round of 16 against Unai Emery’s side (1-3 at home, 0-3 away).

• Club Brugge have only won one of their last 17 games against English sides in major European competition (D3 L13), although that lone victory did come in a UEFA Champions League home match against Aston Villa (1-0 in November 2024).

• Aston Villa have won 67% of their UEFA Champions League matches under Unai Emery (8/12). This is the second-highest win percentage for a manager with 10+ games in charge of an English side, only behind Liverpool under Arne Slot (68% - 15/22).

• After winning each of their final two league phase games in 2025-26, Club Brugge will be looking to win three consecutive UEFA Champions League group stage games for just the second time (they also won three between September and October 2022).

• Since the start of 2024-25 in the UEFA Champions League, only Barcelona (44) have conceded more goals than Club Brugge (43). Among teams to play 15+ matches in the competition in that time, only PSV (2) are averaging conceding more goals per match than the Belgian side (1.95).

• This will be Aston Villa boss Unai Emery’s ninth UEFA Champions League campaign, with Aston Villa being the third club he’s managed in multiple editions, after Valencia (2010-11 and 2011-12) and PSG (2016-17 and 2017-18). The Spanish coach has reached at least the quarter-finals in each of his last two UCL campaigns (semi-finals in 2021-22, quarter-finals in 2024-25).

• Of the 22 goals that were scored by Aston Villa players in the 2024-25 UEFA Champions League, only 32% of them were netted by players who are still currently at the club (7).

• 19-year-old George Hemmings could become just the second teenager to start for Aston Villa in a European Cup/UEFA Champions League game, after Mark Walters against Juventus in March 1983 (aged 18 in that quarter-final).

• Over the last three seasons in the UEFA Champions League, Club Brugge goalkeeper Yann Sommer has prevented 9.5 goals, based on the xG of shots on target faced (excl. OGs) - this is the second-highest total in the competition in this period, behind only David Raya (+9.8).

• Aston Villa’s Zion Suzuki could become the first ever Japanese goalkeeper to play in the European Cup/UEFA Champions League.