Jackson double steers Aston Villa to 6-0 Champions League win over Fenerbahce
Aston Villa beat Fenerbahce 6-0 at Villa Park in the Champions League on 14 October 2026, with Nicolas Jackson scoring a first-half double as part of the club’s biggest European victory.
The result was Villa’s first win at home this season, produced three first-half goals and six in total, and came amid a season-long rebuild around manager Unai Emery. Emery said his team had been affected by work on the North Stand after three winless home games, and the goals arrived in front of the stand’s skeleton after Villa had previously scored only once when attacking that end this season.
Johan Manzambi opened the scoring and Jackson’s brace put Villa firmly in control, despite two important saves from Fenerbahce goalkeeper Zion Suzuki. The visitors, whose squad included former Premier League players, faded quickly in the first half as Villa took a commanding lead.
Ross Barkley added a second-half double and Tammy Abraham completed the scoring with a late tap-in, extending Villa’s recent run to one defeat in seven matches. The six-goal haul was Villa’s highest in Europe and their most in a competitive match since a 6-1 win over Brighton three years ago; they had previously scored five against Hibernian in the Europa Conference League in 2023.
Reflecting on the performance and the season’s progress, Emery said: "They (Fenerbahce) didn't deserve 6-0 but for us it was very important how we achieved the first win at home and how we managed with different players, our progression and step forward.
"There is still a lot of work to do and we need time, we are progressively getting better and it was a good step forward. In the Champions League the three points are important. We want to be a protagonist in the Champions League.
"Now the clear objective is against Newcastle because of the lack of points in the Premier League." He had previously described the opening five weeks of the campaign as similar to still being in pre-season with 10 new players to adapt after a chaotic summer of change.
Jackson, a club-record £65m signing who replaced Ollie Watkins after Watkins' £50m move to Al-Hilal, has four goals in three games and five for the season. He joined Villa having helped Bayern Munich win the Bundesliga on loan from Chelsea and was reunited with Emery, for whom he scored a last-minute winner for Villarreal against Almeria, the final goal Emery had at the club before leaving in October 2022. "I wanted to take it but the most important thing is we win. Hopefully next time I'll get the hat-trick," Jackson told TNT Sports. "It's very important. We haven't won at home. Our keeper is amazing."
Emery also praised Jackson: "Jackson is doing a fantastic job. "He's scoring, he's working defensively [and] helping the team. This is very important and maybe in the future he can shoot (from the spot) as well." Jackson added praise for team-mates: "He [Johan Manzambi] is a top player. I'm really happy we're playing together. I hope we score many more goals together," and "[Ibrahim Mbaye] is [also] an amazing player. We're in the [Senegal] national team together and hopefully he'll get more time to play [for Villa]. He's very fast and it's good to have him."
Other individual notes included Manzambi gliding past opposition tackles, Ibrahim Mbaye finding exploitable space albeit "he needs to improve" in the manager’s view, Leon Goretzka making his debut as a late substitute and Suzuki remaining commanding as he settled into his role. Former Villa captain Stiliyan Petrov told TNT: "I think that's what Emery has been talking about with the potential of this team and what they can do.
"There's been a lot of questions from the start of the season, even for this game as well. People asking how far they can go in this competition but it seems as though they're clicking together and there's a flow to their game.
"The players that Emery has brought in are starting to perform really well and it's a well-deserved win."
Villa now travel to Newcastle on Saturday, a fixture the manager flagged as the next clear objective; the preview noted Newcastle had shipped four goals against Coventry on Monday and sit with one of the Premier League's poorest defensive records as referenced in the match report.
