Villa ousted by Rapid as Everton and Fulham qualify

A 2-1 win against Rapid Vienna in the second leg of their Europa League playoff was not good enough to prevent Aston Villa from making an early exit from the European stage on Thursday evening.

The club held a 2-0 lead until the final 15 minutes of the game, when Rapid Vienna’s Nikica Jelevic struck to bring his side back into the contest. That crucial away goal was good enough to secure Vienna the win, despite the playoff finishing tied on 2-2.

“We should have won,” a downcast Martin O’Neill told FIFA.com after the match. “We did actually win the game. We should have got through. We should have had the game out of sight before they scored and it was unfortunate.”

“They exerted some pressure at 2-0, which you would be expecting, but I thought we had a number of chances to go from 2-0 to 3-0, and that would have sealed the tie.”

While Villa were left ruing missed chances, Everton secured their place in the 2009/2010 Europa League as they drew 1-1 with Sigma Olomouc to finish the playoffs with a 5-1 aggregate win. Fulham also progressed to the inaugural Europa League, despite losing 1-0 to Amkar Perm in the second leg of the playoffs.