Villa got off to the worst of starts in Vienna tonight. 15 seconds. That’s all it took for Rapid Vienna to take the lead.

From kick off they ran into Reo-Coker in front of the back four forcing the ball to be spread out to their left. The ball was whipped in early and it fell neatly on to the head of Jelavic to nod in. I say ‘fell neatly’ mainly because Curtis Davies was flat on his back at the time after some sort of collision in the build up. Can’t say I got a good look at what happened, but there wasn’t any protest from the stunned Villa players.

If you’re going to concede a goal, I suppose it helps if there’s 89 minutes and 45 seconds left to play. However, by the time the referee blew the final whistle it looked like they could have player for 89 hours and Villa still wouldn’t score.

It was certainly a promising enough line-up; Guzan, Beye, Cuellar, Davies, Shorey, Reo-Coker (c), Sidwell, Gardener, Milner, A Young and Heskey in the much requested 4-5-1. Gabby left on the bench, Carew missing apparently with a virus now. (I’m not even going to look what will be made of that by the conspiracy theorists). There should have been enough quality to deal with Vienna there.

Apparently not. Villa seemed bereft of ideas through the rest of the first half. They threatened occasionally – an Ashley Young free-kick early on probably the best chance – but they seemed completely unable to find that extra gear. It’s not that Rapid were impressive in shutting down Villa’s game by any means, they really didn’t need to as there didn’t seem to be a single Villan capable of stringing a simple pass together or dribble without tripping over the ball.

Perhaps they were intimidated by the extremely hostile home crowd. They should be used to that though and shouldn’t expect a much warmer reception at Villa Park for the return leg. Rapid will be pleased that their opponents will have to play with the crowd on their backs for 180 minutes of this tie.

The first 45 minutes were fairly tortuous and I was just looking forward to half-time so MON could turn the hair driers on. They came out for the second half with Reo-Coker barking encouragement to every member of the team. A good sign, perhaps they’re all fired up?

Despite early signs that they were going to grab this game by the collar, the Villans soon degenerated into farcical levels of performance. Any time any of them showed any ability or class they immediately let themselves down with a final ball that went nowhere. Very frustrating.

The 4-5-1 revival was over 10 minutes into the second half when Gabby was brought on for Gardner. It made little difference, the game ambled on without direction, continually interrupted by irritating little fouls. Villa apparently conspiring to find every inept way to give the ball back to the Austrians.

As much as Reo-Coker tried cajoling his troops, they could really have done with being lead by example. As much as he wanted his back four to push up, he would have been more successful if they witnessed a water carrier in front of them, laying off simple passes and moving possession up field. Instead, of course, they got to see trips and stumbles, poor passes and bad tackles.

Guzan too wanted the the back line to push up, but they sure seemed reluctant to allow too much space at the back for some reason. There’s a total lack of confidence among the whole team at the moment, but particularly at the back.

Curtis Davies landed on his shoulder pretty hard with about 15 minutes to go. It was clear from the way he clutched at it that he would be yanked off before long. Sure enough, Shane Lowry came on in his place and stood out from the other three immediately with his enthusiasm. A dangerous late move from Rapid around the penalty box revealed Lowry as the only player capable of reacting to the situation, the others pretending to be statues.

One particular moment late on summed up Villa’s game in a nutshell. Gabby received the ball on the left and turned to run at the Rapid defense. He jinked one way, then the other, while the Austrian stood his ground and then Gabby just ran straight into him, collapsed in a heap and left the ball sitting at the defender’s feet. Nice work.

4 minutes of injury time and there couldn’t have been anyone watching who would have been crazy enough to have backed Villa to equalise. 180 minutes of football in the 2009/10 season so far and Villa haven’t given either keeper the slightest of concerns from open play. It’s not that they’ve just been unlucky, they’ve created nothing. Zip. Nada. Nowt. Bupkis.

So to Villa Park for the second half of the tie. If it weren’t for a flukey goal from the opening gambit, this tie would surely have been 0-0, which in European football isn’t a bad result to bring back home for the second leg.

Look at it this way; at least there’s something to play for if you’re going along to Villa Park for the game.