A battle with Barça at Camp Nou

Aston Villa travel to the Camp Nou for the fourth outing of our UEFA Champions League campaign on Tuesday evening, taking on La Liga champions Barcelona. 

Unai Emery’s men go in search of a fourth successive league phase victory against Barça, after beating Club Brugge, Fenerbahçe and Viking.

The Villans are currently on a five-match winning run in Europe ahead of our clash with Hansi Flick’s charges, which will be the first meeting between the two sides since 1983.

Barça have made an impressive start to the 2026/27 campaign, dropping just three points in La Liga thus far in their bid to retain the title – after last month’s El Clásico defeat to Real Madrid.

Tuesday’s hosts enter on the back of an emphatic 6-1 victory at home to Alavés over the weekend, and are currently eighth in the Champions League league phase table having lost 4-2 to Paris Saint-Germain on Matchday Three, following wins over Feyenoord (5-1) and Galatasaray (4-1).

Stats

This will be the first meeting between Barcelona and Aston Villa since the European Super Cup (played over two legs) in January 1983, which was won 3-1 on aggregate by the Villans (lost 0-1 away, won 3-0 at home). 

The four previous meetings between Barcelona and Aston Villa came between 1978 and 1983 – after going unbeaten in the first three (W2 D1), Barcelona were beaten in the fourth (0-3 in the European Super Cup second leg). 

Barcelona are on the longest current run without a clean sheet of any team in this season’s Champions League (18 games). However, their average of 2.97 goals per game in the competition under Hansi Flick is Barça's highest under any manager (86 goals in 29 matches). 

Villa have led for more minutes than any other team in the Champions League this season (240:09), while they are one of only three teams yet to trail at any point, along with Paris Saint-Germain and Stuttgart. 

Barça winger Lamine Yamal has been directly involved 26 goals in 36 Champions League appearances. His 13 goals are the joint most by any teenager in the competition’s history (level with Kylian Mbappé), while his 13 assists are already the most by a teen. 

Emi Buendía is on the longest scoring streak of any Villa player in major European competition, netting in each of his last four appearances (4 goals). He has faced Barcelona on two previous occasions in his career, losing six-nil on both occasions (0-6 as a Getafe player in April 2015 and March 2016).  

Barcelona’s Pau Cubarsí has made the third highest tally of line-breaking passes among all defenders in the Champions League this season (55 – Jacobo Ramón 60 and Mario Hermoso 57), while he also has the highest overall completion rate of any player to attempt 200+ passes in the competition this term (95.5%). 

Ross Barkley leads all Aston Villa players for goal involvements in the Champions League this season (4 – 3 goals, 1 assist), with this already his most in a single campaign in major European competition.

Matchday Three

Villa made it three wins from three in the league phase last time out, with a 3-1 victory at home to Norwegian side Viking.

Goals from Ross Barkley and Emi Buendía – and a Henrik Heggheim own goal – put the Villans into an unassailable lead just after the hour, as Peter Christiansen salvaged a late consolation.

Barça, meanwhile, fell to their first defeat of the campaign on Matchday Three, losing 4-2 to PSG in a thriller at the Parc des Princes.

Désiré Doué and Lucas Hernández’s goals were respectively cancelled out by strikes from Xavi Espart and Lamine Yamal for Hansi Flick’s men, but late goals from Vitinha and Fabián Ruiz sealed the points for the Parisian outfit.

Team News

Villa suffered no fresh injury concerns against Fulham, though remain without full-backs Matteo Ruggeri and Aaron Wan-Bissaka, alongside long-term injury absentee Amadou Onana.

Taylor Harwood-Bellis replaced Ruggeri in the Villans' Champions League squad and is therefore available, though Brian Madjo remains ineligible for European action.

Dani Olmo remains unavailable for the hosts after being forced off with injury against PSG on Matchday Three.

He is joined on the sidelines by Xavi Espart (ankle), Andreas Christensen (thigh), Roony Bardghji (ACL), Eric García (thigh) and Jules Koundé (ankle).

Managers' Pre-Match Thoughts