Villa come back from dead after fan Hanks' pep talk

Aston Villa do not quite have the Hollywood ending to their season but the watching Tom Hanks got an illustration that football can script stranger drama than his line of work.

- RICHARD JOLLY

A three-minute double from Jhon Duran – perhaps a case of Duran Duran scoring – denied Jurgen Klopp a valedictory victory on the road in his final away game as Liverpool manager.

The substitute’s brace – and his distinctly strange, rather unwitting second goal in particular – nudged Villa closer to Champions League football, even if their destiny remains unclear.

If they are rubbing shoulders with Real Madrid and Bayern Munich next season, it may be because of Duran’s thigh. The Colombian inadvertently diverted Moussa Diaby’s 88th-minute shot past a wrongfooted Alisson, completing a comeback for a team who went 1-0 then 3-1 down.

After such a fraught, frantic night, Villa may prefer it if their fate is sealed by Manchester City on Tuesday, should they take at least a point against Tottenham. Otherwise, they have six more days to wait, and a game at Crystal Palace to negotiate, for a first taste of the European Cup in 42 seasons.

And perhaps a City win on Tuesday could render their fightback and Duran’s double irrelevant. It was, though, a show of spirit from a side who had been subdued and looked exhausted; as though the Villa supporter Hanks’ pre-match words on the pitch, designed to galvanise, had instead sedated all bar Ollie Watkins, Leon Bailey and Diaby. On a confusing, chaotic affair, laced with disallowed goals, VAR checks and errors, featuring too little order and structure for the pragmatists, Villa did to Klopp’s Liverpool what they themselves have done to many another team. They came back from the dead.