Unai Emery faced the media upon landing in the Netherlands on Wednesday evening as he previewed Aston Villa’s UEFA Europa Conference League tie against AZ Alkmaar.
The Villa head coach discussed his one-year anniversary in charge, Villa’s European campaign to date, learning from defeat in Poland, what he expects from AZ and much more.
Here’s what he had to say…
On Villa’s progress over the last 12 months…
“Of course, I am very happy with the work we did and very proud of our one year here trying to connect with our fans, trying to get another step ahead in our objectives and playing in Europe like we are now.
“But, of course, there’s still a lot of work to do.
“My idea is to be demanding myself as a coach. When I started 20 years ago being a coach, my objectives were always trying to learn, to improve and to get better every day.
“And they’re still the same objectives for myself, everybody around me, the club, fans, players, coaches, everyone working at Aston Villa as well.
“I want to share with them my objectives and hard work to get it.”
On learning from the experience against Legia Warszawa…
“Europe is always very difficult.
“We have to respect every team, respect every competition. In the Europa Conference League, teams are there because they deserve to be there and they can dream as well to do something against teams like we are, Aston Villa – Premier League teams, very good players, history.
“The first step we have to do is try to understand this competition, to understand the difficulty of this competition.
“Playing against Legia Warszawa was a very good example, 40-50,000 supporters following them, being one player more for them in the stadium and they were very excited playing against us because for them as well it was a very good opportunity to show they deserve it. And they did.
“We lost and of course we had the possibility to change the way we started, and we won in the last minute against Zrinjski, that’s the example for us, for everybody how difficult it is playing in Europe.
“Tomorrow is the same. AZ Alkmaar, I played against them in 2012 in the Europa League and we lost here with Valencia. I remember it.
“Last year they played the semi-final against West Ham and they were very close to winning against them.
“I know if we want to do something important in this competition we have to really want to do it, and really show it.
“And tomorrow is a really good opportunity to try to play in our best capacity, our skills as players and being very focused in 90 minutes. That is the idea.”
On his team line-up…
“I am always trying to build a team and build a team with the players we have in the squad, but being consistent with our performances.
“We are performing in the Premier League and we have to perform the same in the Conference League.
“My idea tomorrow is to play with players feeling we have to be strong, we have to be focused in 90 minutes defensively and offensively.
“We are always respecting the opponent and they are playing with very good organisation, very good players and their coach as well is doing very good work.
“We will play tomorrow respecting them and trying to be organised in 90 minutes.
“I know, and I’m going to tell players in the last meeting we have, it’s going to be difficult.”
On playing away from home…
“To play away is always very difficult and we are really playing very well at home, being very consistent and winning a lot of matches.
“But away we have to try to get the same performances and try to have the same intensity, try to connect with our supporters, our fans who, tomorrow, are coming as well and we have to try to be strong.
“We have to respect them because every player, every team, when they are playing at home, they are feeling strong with their supporters and fans. They are excited and motivated.
“Tomorrow is very important how we can finish the day against AZ Alkmaar for our objectives in this group.”
