PSG vs Aston Villa LIVE: Team news and updates for Champions League quarter-final – UK Times

PSG’s Vitinha has completed 93% of his passes made under high-intensity pressure in the Champions League this season (544/586).

That is the highest completion rate of any midfielder in the competition (min. 100 attempted).

The Portuguese also leads all players for line-breaking passes in the knockout stages of the current tournament (77).

Ousmane Dembele has netted seven goals in his last six Champions League games for PSG.

That is one more than in his previous 36 appearances in the competition combined (6).

Six of those seven goals have been scored in away matches, however.

It was the first penalty Marcus Rashford had ever taken for Manchester United. It was surely the most pressurised he ever would. Kylian Mbappe could only stand and watch. The World Cup-winning goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon was at least able to dive but Rashford rifled it over him.

The away-goals rule meant the scenario was all or nothing, elimination or progress, deep into added time at the Parc des Princes. United’s underdogs had lost at home. Their resources were so depleted that Tahith Chong came on in the away leg. Against Mbappe and Buffon, Thiago Silva, Dani Alves and Marquinhos, Edinson Cavani and Angel Di Maria. Rashford scored.

“He’s a good guy, he’s humble, he’s a very good professional player. He’s really happy with his teammates and he’s being demanding with himself with everything that we want from him in the team.

“I think he’s playing free and comfortable, and this is the most important thing. It’s important to connect with him as a person firstly and after it to connect with him as a player.

“His process here is getting better. He’s playing in two different positions – he started here as a left winger and now he’s playing as more of a striker. How he can exploit his qualities as best as possible with us is the process we have.

“There’s still more to do and there’s still a process to do, but the most important is how he’s feeling. We’re seeing him smiling, which is the best view we can have. I’m seeing him happy and committed to everything we are doing.”

52% of Aston Villa’s chances created in the Champions League this season have come from the middle third of the pitch (left/middle/right); the highest percentage of any side.

Meanwhile, Unai Emery’s team have conceded the fewest overall chances from the middle third this term (12).

At 24 years and 242 days, PSG have the fifth-youngest starting XI on average in the Champions League this season.

It is also the youngest of any team remaining in the 2024-25 tournament.

Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has won just two of his 10 games against Luis Enrique as a manager (one drawn, seven defeats), with both wins coming in home fixtures.

Indeed, this will be the first time they’ve faced each other since the 2016-17 campaign, when Luis Enrique’s Barcelona came from 0-4 down in the first leg to eliminate Emery’s PSG side in the Champions League last 16 (6-1 win in the second leg).

Aston Villa will be the fourth different English team that PSG have faced in the Champions League this season (also Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool).

This is the joint-most opponents from one nation that a team have played against in a single European Cup/Champions League campaign, along with Leeds United in 2000-01 (four Spanish sides) and Real Madrid in 2023-24 (four German sides).

“A few hundred yards from the Parc des Princes, there were plenty of Aston Villa supporters luxuriating in the Paris sunshine.

“Their first European Cup quarter-final for 42 years is a glamour game, but with the prize for victory potentially a more familiar fixture: it might be Arsenal, rather than Real Madrid, in the semi-finals.

“A familiar face for PSG begins on the Villa bench, with Marco Asensio only a substitute. So is Ollie Watkins, which means Marcus Rashford leads the line in a Champions League quarter-final.

“PSG have spent much of their Champions League campaign playing English opponents, with mixed results, but have been terrific in both home games, even if they actually lost 1-0 to Liverpool on the night.”

In weeks like this, Unai Emery immerses himself so much in match preparation that it’s almost impossible to turn his mind to anything else. He will always have another video to watch. As much as Emery brings these games down to their purest football elements – and almost because he’s such a gentleman – it’s still impossible not to wonder whether he will be motivated by one barb that is still said at Paris Saint-Germain.

That is that he is no more than “a Europa League manager” and “a level below a top coach”. They are stances from senior club figures that have informed wider commentary on Emery’s career, including on these pages.