This is the fifth European meeting between Lille and Aston Villa – they met twice in the Intertoto Cup in 2002, with Villa drawing away and winning 2-0 at Villa Park, then faced in the 2023-24 Conference League quarter-final (both 2-1 home wins).
Aston Villa have never won an away European match (inc. qualifiers) in France in six attempts (D2 L4), losing the last three in a row.
Lille have won the first leg in just one of their last seven major European knockout ties (D2 L4) and were beaten 1-0 by Crvena Zvezda in the first leg of their play-off tie last month.
Aston Villa have won their last five UEFA Europa League matches, their longest ever winning run in major European competition. The last English team to win six games in a row in the Europa League was Arsenal between October and December 2020.
Lille’s Olivier Giroud has 19 UEFA Europa League goals and could be the 11th player to score 20 (since 2009-10) – with all 19 scored since Giroud turned 30; the only two players to score 20+ goals after the age of 30 are Aritz Aduriz (26) and Edin Dzeko (20). Giroud has also scored in each of his last eight matches against Aston Villa, scoring 10 goals between August 2013 and December 2020 for Arsenal and Chelsea.