Edu salutes Villa's brilliance

Two spectacular strikes from Miguel Ángel Angulo and David Villa won the points for Valencia CF against AS Roma on Matchday 2, but an assured defensive display from the home side's midfield in the second half ensured that a precarious 2-1 lead was not thrown away.

Midfield strength
At the heart of the performance, alongside David Albelda, was former Arsenal FC star Edu. He and his partner helped to guarantee that Villa's excellent work - a goal and an assist which secured him the man of the match award - was not wasted. "I'm experienced enough not to get carried away with this, but the experience of playing well against a difficult Italian team and sealing the points in the second half was satisfying," Edu said. "We have now played Roma and [FC] Barcelona in the space of a couple of days and are showing that our fitness is absolutely excellent as we are finishing games without flagging.

'A super-intelligent striker'
"The team is playing with tremendous confidence - some of which is due to having such a fine goalscorer as Villa in front of us," the 28-year-old added. "He is a super-intelligent striker in terms of where he moves and how he times his runs. When you add to that the immense confidence he feels at the moment after a long run of scoring club and international goals that makes him a really dangerous forward."

'A footballing show'
By the time Villa left the field with a minor ankle sprain the hard-won points were practically in the bag. "This was a great match between two strong sides and we put on a footballing show," said the 24-year-old forward. "It was vital to get a victory. I'm delighted with my goal, of course, and it has given us wings, as you say. We can now make it three wins out of three and have nine points by the end of our next game [at home against FC Shakhtar Donetsk] and be in charge of the group. We expected Roma to give us an intense night and they didn't disappoint - but we took our chances clinically."

Hope for Roma
Beaten Roma defender Christian Panucci did not disagree. "We made only two mistakes all night in defence and they capitalised on both of them to score goals," he said. "However, this is not a disaster because it's a narrow defeat and one which we are capable of turning around in the rematch in Rome."