Published: 20:29, 23 October 2025 | Updated: 20:29, 23 October 2025

By UEFA's reckoning, the Dutch Eredivisie is the sixth best league in European football. By the Eredivisie's reckoning so far this season, Go Ahead Eagles are its 12th best team.

So dress this up however you want, an unfortunate blip, an inevitable run buster after five straight wins, a banana skin, they happen, it's no big deal, take your pick. All are categorically wrong on this occasion.

What Villa produced in the second half in this outpost 90 minutes from Amsterdam was nothing short of dreadful. This was a perfect case study of finding a way to lose.

Unai Emery was always bound to make changes with Manchester City up next in the league on Sunday and so to see seven in total didn't exactly sound the alarm, even if Harvey Elliott, who once again bizarrely went unused on the night, was a notable omission.

It was a starting XI totalling a value of more than £250million in fees, not including the loan fee or exorbitant wage coverage Villa are committed to for...