Aston Villa boss Unai Emery said there was no room for sentiment in allowing Nicolas Jackson to take a penalty for his hat-trick in the 6-0 Champions League rout over Fenerbahce.
Jackson had already scored twice, following Johan Manzambi’s opener, when Villa were awarded a second-half spot-kick at Villa Park.
The Senegal striker wanted to take it, but had to watch Ross Barkley step up and convert, with the midfielder adding a second before Tammy Abraham completed Villa’s biggest ever European win.
It made it a miserable return to England for Mason Greenwood, who was playing his first game in this country since his Manchester United career came to an abrupt end in 2022 following a charge of rape, which was then discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service.
With Villa already 3-0 up, it would have been easy to allow Jackson to take the penalty, but Emery was not prepared to go off script.
“We have our plan with the penalty shooter, and today the responsibility to shoot was for Ross Barkley,” he said.
“We have to be so demanding as well there, because here we had some moments as well during the four years I am here.
“Sometimes we were missing some very important penalties, and now Ross Barkley has a high average scoring penalties.
“We have this analysis, and today was clear. But of course, Jackson he is doing a fantastic job, fantastic task.
“He’s scoring, he’s working defensively, fantastic as well, helping the team.
“This is very important and maybe in the future he can shoot as well when we can, making sure his penalty shot could be in cases like that good opportunity to score for him.”
It was Villa’s first home success of the season, putting them in a position of strength in the early Champions League standings, with two victories from two and an inviting home game with Viking to come next week.
Emery added: “We are delighted for the first win at home, we needed it. This is the most important thing about tonight.
“We achieved the first win at home and how we could manage with different players.
“I think a lot of very good things happened through the good result and giving us confidence and and making us as well demanding to keep it for the next matches.”
Fenerbahce boss Ismail Kartal, who tried to resign after their opening Champions League game against Roma but was convinced to stay, could find himself in a tricky position again.
He said: “There is not much to say.
“We could not have imagined a result like this. This is not acceptable. We apologise to all the supporters of the club. We have had our lesson.
“We have an important league game in a few days. We should forget about tonight’s game and concentrate on the next one.”
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