Prince William gives his verdict on Aston Villa's Europa Conference win

Goals from Ollie Watkins and John McGinn appeared to have Villa in firm control of the tie only for Bafode Diakite’s header six minutes from time to give the French club life ahead of next Thursday’s second leg.

William, attending Villa Park for the second time this season and bringing along Prince George, briefly stopped to speak to the press outside as he left Villa Park.

Asked what he thought of the result, he replied: “Two-nil would have been better” before confirming George was now very much following his lead in supporting the club.

“Oh yes, he’s loving it,” he said.

Villa boss Unai Emery was less than impressed with the performance of his team after they missed the chance to take full control of the tie after McGinn put them two up, 12 minutes into the second half.

The hosts were indebted to a string of saves from Emi Martinez, who pulled off three one-on-one stops before half-time.

Lille’s Gabriel Gudmundsson saw a goal ruled out by VAR for a marginal offside before Diakite struck at a corner.

Emery said: “We didn’t control the game how we wanted. We were defensively doing more work than we prepared before because we wanted to control the game through positioning.

“The result is tight and we need to be ready to play another 90 minutes and even for penalties.”

The Villa boss, meanwhile, declined to talk about the half-time incident which saw his assistant Pako Ayesteran and Lille’s goalkeeping coach sent-off.

Lille boss Paulo Fonseca was left fuming with the officials, claiming Watkins’ goal should have been ruled out for a foul by Morgan Rogers.

“I understand it’s difficult for the ref but with VAR it’s incredible they miss these things,” he said.

“It’s not good what’s going on for football here, they must look at what’s going on at the moment. It’s not football, it’s blocking like in basketball. The first goal was a clear foul and a clear block.”