Tielemans leads Villa triumph at Young Boys in flying start

An hour before kick-off the few hundred Aston Villa supporters admiring the view from their seats cheered the first rendition of the Champions League anthem over the speakers and their mood was similarly jubilant after watching their team ruthlessly dispatch the Swiss champions on their first foreign assignment at this level for 41 years.

- Ben Fisher

It was fitting that Jacob Ramsey, who joined Villa's academy at six years old, got on the scoresheet as the travelling supporters sang the name of the late 1982 European Cup winner Gary Shaw, another homegrown hero and the youngest member of that revered team, from start to finish.

Ramsey's strike, scored in comical circumstances, was bookended by fine strikes from the Belgium pair Youri Tielemans and Amadou Onana.

The game was anything but uneventful with the substitute Jhon Durán booked for inciting the most ardent Young Boys supporters stationed behind one end of this stadium after thinking he extended his impressive goalscoring run to make it 3-0 late on. Durán rippled the net with a first-time finish and promptly riled the home fans by jumping on to the digital advertising hoardings and yelling with joy. The locals took a dim view of his antics and the striker was dismayed if not embarrassed when his goal was ruled out a couple of minutes later. It was the second of two disallowed Villa goals for handball, the first belonging to Ollie Watkins. Onana would add a third in style, his rasping strike nestling inside a post from 25 yards.