Aston Villa suffered a 3-1 defeat away to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League quarter-final first leg on Wednesday evening.
Despite the quality on show for PSG, it was the Villans who took the lead, and what a goal it was. Marcus Rashford played a perfectly weighted pass into the path of Youri Tielemans, who fired a cross to the back post where Morgan Rogers was waiting to tap home.
Player ratings courtesy of Sofascore
The home side hit back just moments before the halftime whistle. The electric Desire Doue was the goalscorer, cutting inside onto his right foot and curling his shot into the top right corner, past Emiliano Martinez.
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia gave PSG the lead in the 49th minute with a goal that put his side in the box seat.
It was a remarkable effort, carrying the ball from just inside the Villa half into the penalty box, before rolling it onto his left foot and firing home high into the back of the net. Nuno Mendes sealed the win in the second minute of stoppage time, selling Martinez a dummy and rifling his effort home into a near-empty net.
It was a tough night at the office for Unai Emery’s side, who came up against some high-quality attackers. Matty Cash was one player who struggled to cope at times.
Matty Cash's performance in numbers vs PSG
It is never easy as a defender when you are coming directly up against Doue, Kvaratskhelia and Ousmane Dembele. Poland international Cash certainly struggled at times at right-back and had little respite from the Les Parisiens attackers.
Indeed, those attackers in a PSG shirt were relentless and really had Cash tied up in knots at times. The Villans number 2 picked up a yellow card for a cynical foul in the 17th minute to stop a counter-attack.
Minutes
45
45
Pass accuracy
50%
69%
Key passes
0
1
Tackles + interceptions
3
3
Duels won
3/8
2/5
Possession lost
9x
5x
Fouls committed
4
0
This made it tough at times for him to engage, given that he was at risk of committing a foul and receiving a second yellow card.
In fact, the stats from the game reflect just how tough of a night it was for Cash. As per Sofascore, the 27-year-old won just three of eight attempted ground duels and committed four fouls. Impressively, he did manage to win all three of his attempted tackles.
It was certainly a tough evening and it was perhaps unsurprising to see he was substituted at half time for Axel Disasi.
He will surely be hoping the second leg at Villa Park is a little more forgiving. However, he was not the only Villa player who struggled at the Parc des Princes.
Aston Villa's other underperformer
As much as Villa had to do defensively on Wednesday night, it meant their attackers did not get much joy going forward, aside from Rogers’ goal. One of the players who suffered that fate was homegrown hero Jacob Ramsey.
Chalkboard
Football FanCast’s Chalkboard series presents a tactical discussion from around the global game.
The boyhood Villa star did not necessarily play badly against the French giants but did not have much joy going forward. He also had his work cut out defensively, having to track Achraf Hakimi, who mauraded forward a lot throughout the game.
Indeed, Ramsey’s stats from the game show just how tough it was for him. The Villa number 41 had 29 touches of the ball, completing 61% of his passes and losing the ball ten times. He won three from four duels but failed to win his only attempted tackle.
Touches
29
Pass accuracy
61%
Passes completed
11/18
Ground duels won
3/4
Number of times ball lost
10
Dribbles completed
1/1
Tackles won
0/1
The 23-year-old received a 5/0 post-match rating for his performance from Goal journalist Richie Mills. He described Ramsey as “quite quiet” throughout the game and explained that “much of his work involved trying to track back” and defend against Hakimi.
It will be interesting to see if Ramsey keeps his place in the starting lineup in the next seven days. Villa have the already-relegated Southampton away from home over the weekend before the return leg against PSG next Tuesday.
Emery has several options at his disposal. PSG Lonaee Marco Asensio replaced Ramsey on the hour mark at the Parc des Princes, and Ollie Watkins also missed out on a starting spot.
Perhaps Emery will turn to one of those if he decides to look for more directness in the attack, thus rotating Ramsey out of the side for a huge clash next week.
He was worse than Disasi: Emery must drop 4/10 Aston Villa dud after PSG
Unai Emery must drop this Aston Villa flop who was even worse than Axel Disasi.
ByDan EmeryApr 10, 2025