Unai Emery has insisted that Aston Villa's Europa League victory must be only the beginning, as he sets his sights on challenging Europe's elite. Villa secured their first major trophy since the 1996 League Cup with a 3-0 win over Freiburg on Wednesday, but Emery is determined to push further.
“Next year we will play in Champions League and this is the challenge,” Emery said. “The best teams in the world are there and it will challenge us a lot. The Premier League is the most difficult league in the world. To be fighting top seven, top five, top four is something very difficult. Hopefully we can be close with teams like City and Arsenal.”
The Villa manager rejected the tag of “king of the Europa League”, preferring to focus on the future. “Play for Europe, play for trophies,” he said, explaining the stages of fulfilling the dream he outlined in his introductory press conference. “This is the first one and we are achieving and the experiences we are having is every important in how we can get better. Trophies make sense of what we are doing. We are not going to stop.”
Emery praised set-piece coach Austin MacPhee, whose work led to Youri Tielemans' opening goal. “Austin is a really fantastic creator,” Emery said. “We must be so, so demanding in our details. Everything we are working on makes sense.” Villa captain John McGinn added: “I’m biased, but we have a great set piece coach in Austin MacPhee. We tried to deceive a bit with the set piece. Youri has great quality to find the goal.”
Goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez revealed he played with a fractured finger sustained during the warm-up. “Today I broke my finger during the warm-up and for me, every bad thing brings something good,” he said. “I’ve done this my whole life and I’ll keep doing it. Every time I caught the ball, it went the other way. But these are things you have to go through, and I’m proud to defend Aston Villa.”
