Unai Emery spoke to the media from Bodymoor Heath on Friday afternoon ahead of Aston Villa’s game against Everton on Sunday.
The club head coach was quizzed on his side’s response to last weekend’s loss against Newcastle United, returning to Villa Park, taking on Everton and more.
Here’s what he had to say…
On bouncing back…
“We analysed the match and we analysed it deeply with the players. We have to improve some things that we did really bad.
“But playing the first match away, playing the first match against Newcastle, playing the match with wishes to win the first three points, one of our analyses is that, now, Newcastle are better than us overall.
“We have to continue finding our way and finding our objective. And now we can face only the match we are playing against Everton.
“They played very well against Fulham at home, but they lost. We understand the need [to win] for them and for us. We need to use all our best wishes and have all our supporters being with us in the stadium. We will try to get a good atmosphere being together.”
On the evolution of Villa’s style…
“The most important thing is trying to be critical of ourselves but being realistic, trying to understand to lose in Newcastle can happen but to lose not being competitive in some moments was really dangerous for us.
“We conceded more goals than we deserved, but we lost and they deserved to win. Now we have to recover our way and play thinking how we can play better, how we can impose our idea and style in the pitch and how we can face the duels that we lost more than won last week.
“The players are very focused on Sunday. They know we didn’t play good, they know why we didn’t play better and we are going to face a challenge on Sunday to change and to start in Villa Park with our supporters being stronger.”
On playing at Villa Park…
“Last year we started at home not being really strong. The first match against Manchester United, yes, but then we struggled against Liverpool, Leeds, Wolverhampton, Leicester and Arsenal – five matches that we weren’t in the same mood we were in in our last seven home matches.
“We have to create again, we have to build again at home our strong structure with our supporters and try to get the points we are going to face.
“It’s a challenge. It’s trying to keep the consistency in the matches that we had at the end [of last season] and remembering we have to be focused, we have to be strong, being organised, trying to impose our idea, trying to respect the opponent.
“That is my idea for Sunday. That is my message for the supporters on Sunday and that is the message I sent the players today.”
On playing Everton…
“It’s a tough match, like every match. They will need to win and they will need to start taking points because they lost the first match.
“They lost the first match playing very well, they lost not deserving to lose. They are a very competitive team, the coach is very competitive.
“Their set pieces, their structure defensively and offensively is strong. They have a very good goalkeeper and they are in the same way we want to start after our first defeat, which is to win the first match.
“We respect them a lot and I expect a very difficult match. I’m going to try and get our best performances, individually and collectively, and try to impose our idea and our style against them.”
