Unai Emery salutes Aston Villa defender after Brugge victory

Two goals in the final eight minutes earned Emery’s team a 3-1 win in Belgium in Tuesday night’s last-16 first leg and they are now huge favourites to progress through the tie.

Mings played a huge part in the victory by setting up the opening goal of the match at the Jan Breydelstadion and then preventing Hans Vanaken from putting the home side ahead with a vital goal-line clearance when the scores were level.

The defender suffered the most embarrassing moment of his career when Villa played at Brugge in the league phase in November, picking up the ball to concede the penalty from which Vanaken scored the only goal.

Emery said: “It is very important, getting experiences. The first experience he had here was not good but today he reacted fantastic, playing focused, serious, saving one action that was a goal. 

“We are demanding everyone inside. I am demanding with the players and they have to be demanding themselves. 

“Of course I know the difficulties in football and how we can experience and how we can get better and analyse everything deeply and try and correct it, that is my only target with the players. 

“We corrected something from the match we played here. Of course we have to correct something we didn’t do well today here for the next week against Bruges.” 

Mings helped Villa get off to the perfect start when he set up Leon Bailey to score in the third minute.

But Brugge hit back through Maxim De Cuyper and were the better spell for large spells, with Mings denying Vanaken a goal when he lunged to deflect his header wide.

That allowed Villa to snatch it late, Brandon Mechele putting through his own net before Marco Asensio thumped home his fifth Villa goal from the penalty spot.

Villa are now firmly in the driving seat but Emery warned the tie is not over. 

He said: "There are still 90 minutes to play. They (Brugge) beat Atalanta 3-1 and they competed very well. Now we must watch the match again and understand the difficulties every team brings.

"I am happy, but calm, getting balance. There are still 90 minutes to play. We are not in the quarter-final. I know how difficult each match is and how it can change."