Hello and welcome to the game, football podcast from The Times and Sunday Times.

Ashton Villa are Europa League champions, ending a 30-year wait for a trophy and 44 years since they won the European Cup.

On today's show, we'll discuss a commanding win for Villa and Unae Emery, the manager who loves the Europa League.

We'll also talk Spygate and Southampton's expulsion from the championship playoff final,

get more reaction to Arsenal's title win and Pep Guardiola's exit, and look at the final day of the Premier League season.

I'm Tom Clark, and joining me today, we have the senior sports writer and Sunday Times columnist Alison Rudd, the former Ireland, Millwall and Aston Villa striker

Tony Cascarino and the football reporter and data journalist of the year, Hamza Khalik Loonat.

Team, welcome. We're ready, excited. What a week, hey? What a week.

So, a busy week. Such a busy week. We had to cram in an extra show yesterday because I was like thinking,

if we don't do an extra show on Arsenal and Pep Guardiola, poor old Aston Villa are

going to get about five minutes at the end of Thursday show.

So thankfully, listeners, in case you missed it, we did an extra show with Gary Jacob and Matt

Lawton on Manchester City and Pep Guardiola and Arsenal. That's already in the feed, which means now we can talk about Aston Villa and their brilliant Europa League triumph. Tony, I come to you, as I mentioned in that intro there, one of your former clubs. We've talked so much in recent years about Villa being a big club and their aspirations for being right near the top of the Premier League table. But winning this trophy is a huge moment, isn't it? Absolutely, yeah. I mean, it was probably the biggest heartbreak I had at a football club leaving. But I loved it there. The fans were the nicest fans I'd ever played for. Really? It was when you were, like, some of the clubs I played was quite obvious. If you weren't doing well, you'd get pelters.

Yeah.

Right.

But I could always remember as like people say,

I'd walk in, because you get to the bus,

you get to the Villa Park.

And as you got off the bus,

you'd be like, come on, Tony, keep going.

Come on, you're willing, you're on.

I've got that all the time. I used to think they're so nice these supporters. I mean, I'm sure people say today they might be a bit different. Well, I mean, I'm sure there's probably some Birmingham fans out there and maybe, you know, Wolves and West Bronn't fans who aren't as happy. But in this quite divisive season in terms of football support and, you know, who's won what and how we feel about the modern game, Alison, we can generally all get behind this Aston Villa triumph, can't we? And another Europa league title for Unae Emery.

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