Ross Barkley’s lucky break edges Aston Villa past Leipzig in five-goal thriller

After Jhon Durán scored, with another ludicrously powerful strike, he celebrated by showing the Aston Villa supporters the palms of his hands, as if to say: “Calm down, what else did you possibly expect?” Perhaps it explains why Unai Emery, hands in the pockets of his long black puffer coat, was unmoved. Another substitute, Ross Barkley, ultimately earned victory with stoppage time looming, however, after RB Leipzig twice pegged Villa back, Loïs Openda and Christoph Baumgartner cancelling out goals by John McGinn and that dreamy strike from Durán.

Villa supporters crooned Emery’s name throughout and his changes proved inspired. Durán made another timely contribution and Barkley scored within two minutes of replacing Youri Tielemans. Barkley took aim from the edge of the box and his right-foot shot took a wicked deflection off the Germany defender Lukas Klostermann, wrongfooting the goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi, to push Villa up to third. With a trip to Monaco and a home game against Celtic remaining in the league phase, Villa are in a fine spot to make a play for the top eight.

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