Half way through this tie, it’s advantage to Villa and I’m hoping this is going to be a great game. Rapid have to come looking for goals, a goalless draw is no good to them, a 1-1 draw would force extra time, they have to score twice to gain the advantage, but Villa are surely going to have a point to prove after the debacle at St James’.

The good news is it sounds like Gabby’s fit and hungry to get his season going and could be making his first appearance along with James Collins and Carlos Cuellar. Dunne & Luke Young have “niggles”, while Warnock and Downing are likely to rested. Tough news for Andreas Weimann whose encouraging start to season was brought to an abrupt end after rupturing his ankle ligaments in Vienna and will now be out for two months.

Team selection is a tough one for MacDonald to get right. Failure in Europe once again at the same stage at the hands of the same team will not be well received by a confused and concerned fan base, but he can’t take his eyes of Sunday’s visit by an Everton side who thrashed Huddersfield 5-1 in the Carling Cup last night.

My guess is we’ll see another team blending youth and experience, but with a slightly larger measure of experience than was used in Vienna for the first leg. One player we won’t be seeing is new boy Stephen Ireland as he wasn’t registered in time to be included in the squad. We get to submit a new squad for the group stage, so he will be able to play in Europe should we make it through.

12 of the 48 teams who will be in Friday’s draw for the group stage are already known. Defending champions Atletico Madrid were joined on Tuesday by CSKA Moscow after the Russians completed their play-off tie with a 6-1 aggregate victory over Anorthosis from Cyprus.

Those two were joined by the 10 losers from the Champions League play-off round on Wednesday night: Sevilla, Zenit St. Petersburg, Dynamo Kiev, Anderlecht, Sampdoria, Sparta Prague, Rosenborg, Red Bull Salzburg, Young Boys and Sheriff Tiraspol.

Young Boys, of course, were defeated by Tottenham who have been particularly quiet in the transfer market this summer, perhaps waiting to see whether they would make the group stage of the Champions League. Dynamo Kiev dropped down to the Europa League after losing to Martin Jol’s Ajax, making the Dutchman an even less likely successor to Martin O’Neill than was already the case.

It should be an extremely interesting and possibly pivotal evening at Villa Park tonight. I don’t care how we get through, I just want to have the excitement of new European opponents to look forward to and put the embarrassment of last weekend firmly in the past. An early goal or two will definitely get the home fans on board and that may be crucial, but if it’s 0-0 at the final whistle, I’ll take it.

It would certainly make a welcome change to go through on away goals for once instead of being knocked out, but I really can’t see this finishing goalless.