Aston Villa take on Club Brugge for the second time this season when the teams meet for the first leg of our UEFA Champions League round of 16 tie on Tuesday evening.
Ahead of the clash, manager Unai Emery spoke to reporters from Jan Breydelstadion, discussing the prospect of taking on the Belgians for a place in the quarter-finals.
Here are the key lines from his press conference...
On the League Phase meeting with Brugge…
“We have information about them and information about us. We played here in November and we’re now in March. In the process we are doing, hopefully we can do better now.
“To compete is one thing you have to do in every match you are playing. We analysed the match we played here and they played fantastic football, but we didn’t compete like I want to do.
“To be consistent, competing is the most important. To try to be focused and to get our objective collectively through our individual players, getting the best of their mentality, their individual skills, their combination on the field in our tactical idea offensively and defensively, is the key.
“When we played here we weren’t competing like I want to do. The players know and we analysed why we didn’t compete in that moment like we can hopefully do tomorrow.
“Firstly is knowing them better and trying to compete, stopping them – collectively, in their game plan, individually. And then trying to get the best of us in our structure, in our game plan, feeling comfortable in our positions. Then, playing football is the next step tomorrow, trying to do our best being motivated, being excited, getting balance emotionally and playing good football.”
On striving for improvement…
“It’s a challenge. Always we are trying to improve the team and the squad, adding different qualities of the players.
“We added players with experiences in Europe and in this competition. Usually, they are players playing in the highest level who can help us a lot.
“The process they are doing, progressively adapting to us, is going well. It’s getting better, how we want to use them in our structure, defensively and offensively, because football is collectively.
“How can we make them feel comfortable in our structure to help us. We are not going to get our objective only through individual players or individual skills. We are going to get our objective collectively, building our structure as strong as possible.
“Once we have our structure, individual players can exploit their skills. This is the challenge we have. It’s my challenge, it’s the club’s challenge, it’s the players’ challenge. Each one has their objectives and hopefully we can share together, getting in this process our objective in the next three months.”
On Villa’s approach to the first leg…
“Every experience I had before is very important, but the most important experience I can have now is with Aston Villa. It’s a new way because my experiences can help a little bit but they’re not really relevant.
“The biggest thing is how we can compete now with our structure and our players, with our capacity as a team. Then it’s about trying to build a strong structure in the club, a strong structure in the squad and a strong structure on the field, with 11 players playing tactically like we want and like we can play against every team in Europe.
“The experiences we can have are only to try to get balance and to play, trying to manage our emotions. Tomorrow is a key moment for the season – tomorrow and the second leg in this competition.
“We have to try to play being responsible, being mature, and emotionally being strong.”
On becoming more consistent away from home…
“When we have the ball we will need to be strong, dominating the match like we want to do. Our challenge is through the players we have – Asensio, Rashford and the other players we have.
“Playing away, our results in the last 12 matches – we lost nine and won three. They’re not good results that we achieved.
“Getting balance, we are feeling very strong at home. We’ve played 23 matches and lost only two this season. We lost against Arsenal in the Premier League in August and we lost against Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup.
“We are feeling strong and consistent at home, but we are not feeling consistent away. In this competition, we won at Young Boys, we lost at Brugge, we won at Leipzig and lost at Monaco – two and two. It’s enough balance for the competition.
“We got to be in the top eight, but tomorrow we have to do something better away than we did. We have to be stronger in our consistency than we did before here in Brugge and in Monaco as well.
“Hopefully, we can feel strong and comfortable tomorrow playing trying to face them with our capacity.”