I watched Aston Villa on TNT and almost Dion Dublin-ed my TV screen

A shock Aston Villa defeat with Robbie Savage on the co-comms – no wonder I almost Dion Dublin-ed my TV screen and sent the bill to TNT Sports.

It’s fair to say Villa’s long-awaited return to European action against Legia Warsaw didn’t go to plan and only partly because of the Birmingham City Bluenose doing our nuts in on a microphone.

The last time Villa were in Europe in 2010-11 I was the beat reporter for the Birmingham Mail so I felt a slight pang of jealously when our latest man at Villa, John Townley, sent over clips of fans chanting their heads off outside bars in the Polish capital ahead of the club’s first Europa Conference League group game.

For context, the one and only time I’ve been to Warsaw, as I explained on our post match Claret & Blue podcast, was on a stag-do when my half-naked mate nearly ran in front of a bus to stop us clingfilming a wet fish to his exposed torso.

READ – Every word Unai Emery said after shock Aston Villa defeat

READ – Player ratings as Chambers and Co struggle in Warsaw

Come to think of it, a splitting haddock might’ve been preferable to the splitting headache induced by Savage summarising a Villa night to forget yesterday evening.

This year, unless some sugar daddy can bump me up the long queue for overseas tickets with some ‘considerably richer than yow’ hospitality package, I will be dividing my European viewing between Villa Park for the home games and BT Sport’s most recent incarnation for the aways.

Last night it was settling down in front of the telly to enjoy a routine vict… uh-oh.

I must admit I thought my telly was on the blink in the first half as technical difficulties in the coverage and in Unai Emery’s defence ruined my viewing.

The audio and the pictures were hopelessly out of sync – Poles apart, some might say.

Initally, I put it down to some kind of power outage caused by my fellow Villa fans crashing Booking.com by hastily cancelling all those pre-booked Athens hotel rooms.

But it really did start to grate as Savage and commentator Paul Dempsey called Pawel Wszolek’s opener and Jhon Duran’s equaliser seconds before we saw the action for ourselves.

Villa Park’s public enemy No.1 is not known for his fortune-telling abilities (otherwise he’d have dodged Dion in the Much Ado About Nutting episode of 2003) so it was obvious something was off.

Watch us wreck the mic, psychic.

Savage tried – 20 years too late – to ingratiate himself to the claret and blue viewers by claiming that he supported all English teams in Europe and, despite his St Andrew’s allegiances, wanted Villa to do well, only for Demspey to hint that the Welshman’s words were delivered through a gritted teeth grin.

To be fair to the TNT crew, they did offset the Savage factor by having two former Villa midfielders on the pundits sofa alongside presenter Matt Smith.

Ian Taylor, with his continued ambassadorial links to his beloved club, is a master diplomat, but managed to honestly critique Villa’s woeful defending without throwing Calum Chambers and Lucas Digne under the bus (no fish were involved), using that very Brummie demeanour to convey his and our disappointment.

Joe Cole, meanwhile, bemoaned the failure of several Villa players to ‘nail’ opponents, whose intensity and quality clearly took Villa’s smattering of understudies by surprise.

After Tayls and nails at half time, the second period saw the TNT production team get their act together, finally matching up the sound and pictures.

Sadly, Villa remained out of sync, but looked like they’d been in the sink.

Those Castore kits were dripping wet, like the pyjamas us old-uns used to wear to retrieve rubber bricks to gain our lifesaver badges at the local swimming baths back in the day.

Cameras panned from one dugout to the next, showing Legia boss Kosta Runjaic, reminiscent of a young Eric Bristow calmly savouring an unexpected treble as Ernest Muci put the hosts 3-2 up and then flitting to Emery, frantically gesticulating like an angry Dracula, wondering why his full-backs are afraid of crosses.

“I hope the Aston Villa fans are enjoying the occasion here, even if they’re about to lose, because it’s been fantastic,” said Dempsey, clearly a stranger to the phenomenon known as ‘Villa Twitter meltdown’.

Nah mate.

After the worst performance in Poland since that Matty Cash Christmas advert (Google it), we’d rather be chased in front of a bus with a wet fish than listen to Robbie pontificate on our European anticlimax.

How can I watch Villa in Europe?

The streaming home for TNT Sports in the UK is discovery+, where fans can enjoy a subscription that includes TNT Sports, Eurosport and entertainment in one package. You can also watch TNT Sports through BT, EE, Sky, and Virgin Media.

You can watch all the Europa Conference League action live on TNT Sports You can upgrade to TNT Sports on Sky for £25 a month depending on Sky Sports. Sports fans can get TNT Sports 1, 2, 3 and 4 through Sky. You can upgrade and find out the terms and conditions here.

You can watch on Amazon Prime by getting discovery+ Premium for £29.99 a month on top of your Amazon Prime subscription. Find out how you can watch the Champions League on Amazon here.

You can catch all the action on BT Sport, and 30 days of TNT Sports, contract-free for £29.99 a month and get discovery+ Premium at no extra cost here.

You can watch TNT Sports with Virgin Media. All you have to do is choose a TV package and then customise it and add the TNT Sports Collection channel pack. This channel pack is available on a 30-day rolling contract.

For existing customers you can simply sign in to your My Virgin Media account to see the latest offers and upgrade your package. There’s nothing else you have to do but tune in to the same channels you did previously.

What did you think about TNT’s coverage of Legia Warsaw 3 Villa 2? Have your say here.