Ollie Watkins wins the first leg for Aston Villa in Lille!

Baseball is back, and the first pitch is on Netflix.

The New York Yankees, led by seven-time all-star Aaron Judge, head to the San Francisco Bay

to take on Raphael Devar's San Francisco Giants.

This season kicks off with one exclusive opening night game.

Watch MLB opening night, the New York Yankees versus the San Francisco Giants live on Netflix.

Tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific.

Abercrombie's active brand, your personal best, is built for every part of your workout routine.

The YPB neonate hoodies and sweatpants are soft, breathable, and moisture-wicking.

Your perfect warm-up layers.

And for leg day or any lifting day, pair YPB motion tech shorts with their active teas

and tanks.

Level up your workout routine with all new active by Abercrombie.

Shop YPB in the app, online, and in stores.

Protein is now at Starbucks, and it's never tasted so good.

You can add protein, cold foam to your favorite drink, or try one of our new protein lattes

or matcha.

Try it today at Starbucks.

They say you should learn something new every day.

Like how you should only drink Yeager Meister at zero degrees Fahrenheit.

Ice cold.

Like those frozen cavemen they find, which makes you wonder, what would a caveman think

of Yeager Meister?

Well, if you served it more, he'd probably throw it in your face, say,

and storm off, and nobody wants that.

So drink it cold?

Or not at all?

Yeager Meister.

Damn.

That's cold.

Drink responsibly.

Yeager Meister, La Cure, 35% alcohol by volume imported by Master Yeager Meister, US,

White Plains, New York.

Spring is here, and the shopping list is long.

Time to make a lows run.

Buy three bags, get three free of stay green, one cubic foot garden soy.

Plus, right now, members can earn four times the points on an eligible purchase.

Start spring off strong with these deals and more.

Our best lineup is here at Loves.

Balance the 325, while supplies last.

Soil offer excludes a last-gen Hawaii, loyalty program subject to terms and conditions.

See Loves.com slash terms for details.

Subject to change, point booster subject to exclusions, and more terms apply.

One time we'll only offer.

Welcome to the Cloud and Blue podcast post-match reaction, our first winning post-match reaction

since I think the 11th of February, which is a month ago against Broughton in case you've

all forgotten.

It's nice isn't it to be talking about winning football?

It is, actually, yeah.

These ones in recent weeks, I've really dreaded coming on.

I don't know.

Only frustration about coming on tonight, so I still haven't had any tea yet, but I don't

know what I've got.

So I'm just thanking you, by actually, and Chip's proper, proper old bloke group.

Yeah.

You're feeling a bit under the weather as well, aren't you?

I'm not feeling great.

I must admit, and I think I'll put my back out this morning, getting some picking

something out of the washing mask, which is a lesson for me to never do any laundry.

That's true.

Anything about that?

Nothing about that, indeed.

This is, of course, European knockout football.

It's a two-legged affair.

We'll want to look at half-time, aren't we here?

Imagine us jumping on a podcast 45 minutes into a game.

It's kind of similar vibes, I guess.

You can't be too over-confident, especially because there's only one goal in it.

And the job's not done, right?

So this is not a massive celebration of, oh, yes, we should get through to the court final.

It's not that at all.

God forbid, a little score in the first few minutes next week, and we're back to where

we started.

So this is not, like, let's all get carried away.

But park that for a sec.

It's just nice to win a game of football, whether we played well or not, or talk about in

a little bit, some sure.

But it's a results business, isn't it, knockout football?

And I was expecting us, maybe to draw, possibly lose, to be honest.

I didn't really foresee us winning because of the run that we've been on, and you absolutely

take it, don't you?

However, it comes.

Yeah, it's a win.

It's a clean sheet.

It's an Ollie Watkins goal.

And we've been after those things for quite a while, aren't we, all of those things?

And I've got Stankini Piverty, so it's got to go down as a better end to the day.

That's not it.

Yeah, yeah.

When that team news came out, we'll go straight back to it.

You know, look, I can add it with the, you know, Deans back in there, Wendy is back in

there.

Ollie Watkins back in there, or still in there, maybe I should say, I'm sure everyone's

thinking exactly the same thing.

Wendy will assist Ollie Watkins later tonight, and we'll win the game.

That's what I thought when I saw the team news, did you?

I felt a bit sorry for the villa admin, actually, when I saw the team news, I didn't

read the comments, but I've been around long enough to have a sense of what the comments

look like.

Yeah, you know, we've all been advocating changes, probably for the last, I don't know,

last month.

Month, yeah, I'd have thought so, but ultimately it's paid off, I'm sure we'll get to

Watkins in good time, but Emery's kept faith with him, he's eventually repaid that faith

with what's proved to be the winning goal tonight, or at least a half time, half time winning

goal.

Yeah, it's one of those ones where I don't think you can underestimate going away and keeping

a clean sheet and winning away in Europe, and I didn't watch the whole of the episode

that you did with the villa social the other night, but I think it must have been one of

the clips that you that you saw about Simon Lines saying that your openly probably gets

a bit of a rough deal now, whereas the UEFA Cup didn't, and the main difference is the

financial rewards on offer, and I think that's right.

I think we shouldn't really underestimate this competition if we are able to go a little

bit further, oh yeah, win the bloody thing, then it'd be a brilliant achievement.

And I think given the, I won't say negative, well, is it negativity or worry, concern and

anxiety that's followed us, the villa, for certainly the last fortnight, I think that's

a really, really impressive result tonight, and I thought the performance was good.

I didn't think it was brilliant.

I thought that at times in the first half we were still a little bit ragged and a little

bit clumsy in possession, and I did worry whether, you know, giving them the ball back

to easily at times was going to come back and haunt us, but we're a better team than

Lille.

We proved it tonight, and we've just got to finish the job at Villa Park next week.

Yeah, and they've had a few chances, obviously we don't have a shot on target in the first

half, but there's moments where, and it's very kind of, you know, the narrative of Avila

and Neely team, well, they're full of nearly men and we ever going to go over the line.

We felt like Neely chances, oh, we're kind of threatening to just about do something

and then fall down, you know, before it culminates and actually getting inside the box or

a shot going wide or whatever, and it just felt a bit like, we're looking a little bit

bare here, but it's still not quite right.

It feels like we're nearly there, we're nearly doing something, and that's possibly not

going to be enough.

Everyone's perception of this game before and after it will be different.

It was a few comments suggesting, yeah, well, we should have scored two or three, and

we didn't like the target order to be over.

I never really thought it was going to be like that anyway.

If you went into this game thinking, you know what, Villa could lose here, like me, I'm

buzzing with that.

I was not expecting us to win.

I'd absolutely snap your hand off for one meal before the game.

I'd snap your hand off for a draw to be perfectly honest, just to kind of take something

back into the game next week.

And as I say, it's a little score early next week and that'd be back level pegging again,

but forget that for now, Villa, I've got the advantage and we'd have all taken that

beforehand.

So I don't think we did play brilliantly.

There's still parts to improve, absolutely.

You've got some kind of half chances, and you've probably not taken them as you should,

you know, and I honestly, the post hasn't towards the end as well.

So yeah, Villa, six months ago, maybe do win two or three nil, but we're not the Villa

of six months ago at the moment, with a Villa who hasn't won for a month and has had shocking

performances week and week out for the last couple of weeks.

So to go and win away in a hostile environment, energy-robely knockout game, I ain't grumbling

with that.

Yeah, I think the clean sheet was the thing for me because we desperately needed, I'm

going to rely for the clean shades now, back to basics, you know, give us a platform

to build on, et cetera, et cetera.

And we did that and I think that's going to be important, you know, get ahead of

myself, but it's not only a few days away.

That's going to be important, that professional display and that resilient display is going

to be important, going to old Trafford on Sunday as well.

So yeah, it's still, it still doesn't, it's probably still not the most free flowing

in the forward areas.

I don't know, has it been all season?

It's been better than it has been, definitely, but, you know, there's probably appeared

in that game where it felt like none of those forward options were having a good game

when we were spoken the week about, you know, Bandeir gets a lot of criticism, but why

does Rodgers never get so many?

He's not a blank word at the moment, and I've agreed with that, I don't think he has

played particularly well, I don't think he's played well tonight either, but not many

of them have right in the attacking areas.

I think we've been better defensively, you know, who you might have the match options

bow guard, maybe, right back, who, you know, I don't think he's a right back, but played

well and a steady performance.

I thought, no, I've played his better game for the last couple of weeks as well.

So, you know, with one one nail, but our better players are probably the defensive ones,

so that probably shows that might be, you know, going forward, we're not, maybe as root

this as we need to be.

This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks.

Big news for your kids' lunch box.

Welch's Fruit Snacks are now made without any artificial dies.

A snack parents can feel good about, and the same delicious taste kids can't get enough

of.

That's what we've made with no artificial dies.

Try Welch's Fruit Snacks today.

Yeah, great.

I think I probably would give it bow guard.

That was an area of concern for me, you know, we know that Matti Cash has been one of

our better, most consistent players this season.

If you actually, I don't know why I'm saying this, is your social media timeline being filled

with Matti Cash's new commercial deal?

I've seen a couple of them.

So he's clearly, you know, I don't know what he's going to do.

I think he's just staying back.

He's got a freezer full of, well, like, he's it's similar or something, I don't know.

I've not paid enough attention to actually know the brand name and the advertiser to have

worked on me, but I saw the T1 comment that was like, maybe he should be back in training

rather than vlogging ready meals or whatever.

It's a world like that, but for the, there's something about that, as well as Matti's

and having about doing some stupid video or something, the other night, he said, oh,

forget about that, you know, should be in training on his day off in on a Sunday or whatever

it was.

Yeah, half nine on a Tuesday night, whatever he was.

But yes, I thought bow guard played, played really well, yeah, just very, very neat and

tidy, very diligent defensively.

And I probably would give it, give it him and not you said that, that says it all about

the top of performance that it was and that you needed to be.

Yeah, let's talk about the goal then, I do what Kim's been desperate for one and something

we spoke about on that, that real or so, should have, you know, I don't know, you spoke

about it on the car and brew the start of the week that Tammy kind of gets a bit of positivity

for like, he scored a couple of goals that shouldn't have been, but we go, oh, well done,

Tammy.

I do what Kim scores one that was ruled off side, but maybe shouldn't have been because

it was so tight and it's like, boo, Tammy Abraham, I do what Kim's sorry, he's now scored

back to back goals, technically, if you're kind of really scraped for positives, but no,

obviously not.

But it's going to go in a different way.

Cancer goes long, Amy Brandeer wins a header that he's probably got no right to win.

And I do what Kim's chips the keeper with the header, like it's a very unusual goal,

but again, you absolutely take it.

As we've been saying for weeks, try something different.

Yeah, it was, what was going to say, somebody said in the comments that I noticed a little

bit earlier that it's when he does things instinctively, he said that before, he tends to work

when he's given too much thinking time, he doesn't always work.

Wasn't his first goal of the season a little kind of, not with his head, but wasn't that

an instinctive lob earlier this season, I'm confused with something else, I can't remember,

it's funny because my, well, this sums up, this sums up polywalk is to be, but if you

said me what's that message saying, lovely header from all of that, and then I didn't reply,

then about one minute later, never mind, what's he just done?

So I think even when, even when he got his redemption, it lasts for a minute or a minute and a half

before he misses the next chance, but yeah, hopefully that goal will have given him some confidence,

and we'll probably drop him now, now he scored the goal anyway.

It's been the narrative for ages, how is he still playing? And again, his overall game

with the other forwards are not very good. Sloppy passing the chance that he's gone down when he's

running through on goal and he's going down by in the penalty, it just looks really clumsy,

that I'm not sure it's a foul on the keeper, and I don't really think it's a penalty,

I think he should probably just shoot rather than try to take it around the keeper anyway,

what did you think of that? Do you know what I thought of that? I think that if that's

Harry Kane, he scores the goal and wins the penalty. Doesn't he? Because he slots.

Very clever from Kane. He slots it or he digs it, and he stays in the line, in the goalkeeper's

line, so he gets taken out as well. What can you either get your shot away there or you get fouled,

and I think he's, I don't know, listen, we want players to be honest and stuff like that,

but why are you doing everything to get out the goalkeeper's way? You know, sure the goalkeeper

should be getting out of your way. So, but listen, he scored the goal that won the game,

and I think, yes, probably should have scored a second, and if you had a done,

I don't want to count my chickens, but that probably would have been, you know, should have

put us in a really, really strong position in the tie, but given it's been so,

such slim pickings for Watkins, I think, you know, letting him have his moment of being

being the match winner tonight. Yeah, I agree, you know, if this time next week was enough,

we'd have scored more in the away leg, we'd have been better off tonight than that's a different

conversation, but if Villa progressed through to the quarterfinals, when you look back on,

if hopefully we go on to win the thing and you look back on how did Villa get there,

Ollie Watkins scored the goal to start the run in the knockout section of the tournament.

All right, he missed a couple of chances, but we won the game 1-0 and he scored it. That's

that's where it goes down in the history book. So, yeah, hopefully this is the beginning of something

not just for Villa in this competition, but for, for Ollie Watkins as well.

I actually, you know, we often say before we start these, you know, should we try and just keep

this to 20-25 minutes? No, I think we might actually do that today for a change, because it does

feel like half time. McGinn, though, and I want to kind of, I don't want to come to the other,

I told you so, but we spoke last week about when these players return from injury and when we've

seen it before, they've come back in and they've looked good straight away. Yeah, but John McGinn

might take three or four weeks to get up to speed. You were telling us when he comes back, he might

take three or four games and the times run out. John McGinn looks like he's not missed a minute.

He's been missing for the last 10 games, but he comes on. It's like, oh yeah, there he is. Look,

doing what he does with his ass, doing what he does that little spin. It's exactly the same.

He's back, right, and that's a massive positive. Yeah, I was a bit, I've surprised that he,

I know he took him, but I was surprised that he put him on, to be honest, but I probably wanted

to get some, a little bit of some ammunition for Sunda. Munits in his legs to try and getting back

in the starting line upon, on Sundaib. That's John McGinn, isn't he? What you see is what you get,

a kind of whirling derv issue. What did the commentator say if you were teaching a,

this is not me having to dig a point there, but the commentator said, if you were teaching,

if you were teaching kids how to protect the ball, you get them to watch YouTube videos of John

McGinn, and then he cut to everyone there, he gave the ball away, about three seconds later.

What did you think of when there tonight? First of all, say that again, you cut out them massively.

How did you won that header? How did you win that header? Yeah, I've got no right to win that

header, and he's actually, he's pretty good in the air, I think. I don't know, maybe for his height,

he's good in the air. I don't know, I've been saying it for weeks, I just, I think he's an okay

squad player for a team that's pushing top six, and he started the last seven or eight games,

I want to say off top of my head, maybe that's in the league, maybe it's all competitions,

and I've thought pretty much every game comes after the one before, and I thought

surely Wendy is not doing enough to start again, and then he does, but then part of me also

wonder who comes in from any way, in those areas, right, Bailey's not played very well,

Sancho, I don't think it's playing very well. What can the Tammy probably aren't going to play

together? There's not probably enough in the midfield to play a midfield for three, so Wendy is

almost getting in by default, it's how I feel about it, but never really does enough to impress me,

like yeah, he runs around a bit, but I see that as that more kind of chaotic thing of,

well, he runs a bad way and put himself about, but he'll probably do the extent of just getting

a buck in, giving the ball away and just being a bit sloppy. Again, if we go on to progress to this

tie, he set up Watkins to score the goal to start off this little journey, so that's all

we'll ever remember, but for a period of time now, I just don't think he's been to the standard,

so you've said after Wolves, didn't you, you thought he was pouring that game specifically,

but I think he's been poor for a while. Yeah, I think what you see more and more is his second

touch is a tackle or a foul because he's not getting the ball under control, although, you know,

I think sometimes we do point the finger up when there, but Sancho is he doing enough for me?

There's an opportunity in the second half where he's taking two heavy touches, and when there's

an opportunity for him to actually go straight towards goal, he finds himself near the corner flag

because he's not got the ball under his spell, but I don't think Wendy has been of the standard,

but I do think he's an easy scapegoat for us, and I can include myself with that because

you mentioned Morgan Rodgers there, and Rodgers often, you know, a heavy touch will give the ball

away about what you're meant to him back to the opposition, but because we know that Rodgers is

capable of those big moments, you know, those marauding runs and stuff, we probably forgive him a little

bit more, but I don't think, you know, if we've won the game, we scored one goal, and probably say,

yes, we probably should have had two or three more, but the fact that we haven't, to me,

he's a sign that that forward line still isn't clicking. Not functioning to a degree. Yeah,

fully, I completely agree. A couple of comments about injuries, one from about Alice and

there from King Gay, one of those, one about Barkey earlier on. I just don't think then the Europa League

squad, because you can only re-register three, can't you? Three new additions, so Bayley,

Douglas Wies and Tammy are the three that have come in, so we didn't hear anything from the press

about any injuries, Barkey or Alice, and so I assume it's just that they're not in the squads,

more so than a fitness thing, which is again, a frustration because if Alice and he's in that squad,

and this is, you know, you can't kind of have it all right if he's in it, one of the others isn't in it,

but if he was, you would be looking at him as maybe being Wendy's replacement potentially, so

yeah, we'll probably see a different line up on Sunday, and then a different line up again

next Thursday, so we've got some options, but not loads of massive quality, I don't think,

if McGinn does come in and start on Sunday, then someone else who's playing now is on the bench,

and that makes the bench look stronger, so yeah, I mean, we'll talk about Sunday tomorrow,

probably I think that might be you and me again, I'll talk to you about afterwards, so we won't get

into it now, but yeah, we've not played particularly brilliantly, but we've won away in the first leg of a

knockout competition when I didn't think we'd win, so I'm happy. Yeah, I think it's a massive week

for us, and I don't tend to go into the hype of season defining and must wins and stuff like that,

but I do think these three games, little away tonight, and you know, it went on Sunday,

and little back at Villaparkon next Thursday, those are really, really, really important

fix just staying the obvious unknown, and the way we look at it tonight is that we've ticked off

the first of them with a satisfactory successful outcome, it's probably calmed, calm things down,

a little bit ahead of Man United on Sunday, and I know you said you're going to talk about that

in greater depth, you know, in the next couple of days, but that one's already, I don't know,

that one already freaks me out, I mean, have we got to a situation where the villa of being on a

barn storming run of winds, Man United have been loaded a cack for most of the season, and yet,

we still go in there, there's massive jeopardy on it again, when's he's going to end?

Never, we're destined to always be in that in, in toil with Man United,

and Brett Riverboat says, this little side is miles off the last time we played,

then my people are honestly happy with that, Leo a bottom league championship team equivalent,

and a good Jiru 10 years ago scores that header, 39 year old Jiru doesn't tonight,

and whether they're championship level or not, I don't know, you beat what's in front of you,

do you know what I mean, we'll see your turn, it'll then Leo the crap, oh what, so we lose,

oh that's an outrage, we love, we've won the game, we're hopefully win the tide,

like what are we supposed to do here, like if the opposition's not very good, you have to beat them,

we have, we haven't beaten them convincingly, but we won, come on.

No, I think if we lose next week and we get knocked out, then we can all agree with Brett,

well, it's half done, for one little bit, half done.

I mean, I got, I must admit, I was getting, I thought he was going to be

fight that he'd scored and I was so bored of hearing that, and I scored more goals against

Villa than any other team, scored 10 goals, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

We were linked with him, weren't we, was he under Smith, that we were linked with him?

Oh, I don't know, we definitely have been, I don't know whether it was the Smith

era or not, once we've been fighting, it was, I think it was, when Wesley got injured,

what that'd be 2020, 2020, I think we were linked with him, and we ended up signing Borgia

Baston and Ali Samata, because I think we were going to try and take him on loan, but I don't know

whether we could, because of, great memory. We had drink water on loan at the time.

Yeah, great memory. So I found an article from 24th January 2020,

Aston Villa transfer target, Olivier Giroux is now a shock target for Barcelona, I liked it

up at either. Yeah, we were linked with him. Yeah, I completely forgot about that. He was

obviously still at Chelsea and we did have drink water on loan. So yeah, good memory from you,

fair play. Occasionally, mate, these things that, that, you know, don't remember my name or

what I had for breakfast, but there's something lurking in there somewhere. Can I just end with one

little, kind of little nugget? In January's 100th win, Aston Villa manager, in the content

we were doing in the week, somebody in our YouTube comments said, when is he going to get his 100th

win for the club? Because it's obviously been hanging over us, hanging over here maybe since the

Broughton win, which was 99, it's now in a month to get to 100. When will he get to 100?

And I replied, tongue in cheek more than anything saying, Thursday, you know, don't worry about it,

I've replied just before he started saying, yeah, it told you. Not that I ever believed it,

but I think he's the fastest manager. I think I've seen Stato posted to get to 100 wins or something

like that in his time at the club for God knows how many years, whatever the record is, you know,

those kind of things. You can fill in the rest of the details. He's pretty good, isn't he or not?

Yeah, I mean, how many, how many duff managers would you have to add up to get to 100 win,

I mean, Remi guard and I like going backwards, chronologically, Remi guard and Tim Scher would

and Paul Lambert, et cetera, et cetera. You could probably add up about 10 of those to get

to 100 wins. So yeah, I know, I know that the high lows slipped with some in recent weeks after

we've found it difficult to maintain a gap at the, you know, in the top four, if you like,

but he's a special, special coach and we are very lucky to have him. He might be stubborn.

What is he's stubborn and insisting on playing players who we don't think

it should be given to the most people? But that's the manager's progative, isn't it?

And ultimately, you know, I know we, it's a bit of a crap thing to say because we're on air every

week or several times a week, but judging stubbornness at the end of the season, don't we?

Yeah, and named games as well, right? Everyone before this would have said time it should play

and maybe Wendy shouldn't. And if we don't win the game and Wendy and Watkins play,

that's the talking point. We come on air and we're going, was he playing the same team for

a definition of insanity? Didn't the same thing? We've done all that. He's played the same team

or some of the same players who maybe we thought they wouldn't and we've won the game.

And was it convincing? No, but we've won. Let's all move on to next week. We could move on to

Sunday, first of all. Just to clarify, that ham thing, he's fisted staff for me there.

Emery becomes the third villa manager to reach 100 wins for the club because all competitions,

Emery's also the quickest to reach this milestone doing so in the 179 matches, 23 games fewer than

Joe Mercer and 31 fewer than Ron Saunders. So only the third manager to do it and doing it quicker

by 20 odd games than the others as well. So yeah, on to 200 wins for the club, who would have had the

most wins for us as manager? Going back to the black and white days, I suppose.

I don't know. Probably would be Ron Saunders, wouldn't it? He was there the longest that I thought

in terms of, I think you go back to the Victorian era. I mean, we had a manager who was here for

30 years or something. So five definition, one loads of games. As the modern era, Emery will win

the most. I think, did we even have managers as such then? Was he just a lot more stashier,

many cycle-pent farming? Was it the first ever proper manager or something?

I mean, I'm testing my history here live on air, but I'm sure we were the first club to have

like a proper manager. Mr Ronison, you've failed your interview to become Astonville's new tour guide,

I'm afraid. Yeah, where's McDowell when you need him? Right, that'll do. As I say, I think it will

be you and I doing the Man United preview tomorrow or Saturday. So I don't want to kind of go into

what we think of that now, because we'll do it another time. It's halftime in the tie. Villa

are ahead. That's all we wanted. So we hope for, I'll be what can just scored. Let's hope this is why

this is the beginning of another little run. We spoke in the week about the last time we're in a bit

of a funk. We got out of it by being belong year in Europe, full of them, and then fine-ord, and then

we won't go on those how many in a row. We'd all of it, won't we? If we go on another, another

record winning run after this European win as well. Right, Matt, thank you for joining me on this one.

Thank you for watching along or listening wherever you are, and we'll see you tomorrow or Saturday

for the Man United preview. See you later.

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company. No matter how you do game day,

on the couch, in the crowd, or manning the snack table, Athletic Brewing fits right in.

With a full lineup of non-alcoholic beer styles, you can enjoy bold flavors all game-long.

No hangovers, no buzz, no subbing out for water in the second half.

Stuck the fridge for tip-off with a variety of non-alcoholic craft styles available at

your local grocery store or online at AthleticBruing.com. Near beer, fit for all times.