Unai Emery has urged Aston Villa to build on their Europa League triumph, insisting the club must not stop at winning their first major trophy since 1996. Villa beat Freiburg 3-0 on Wednesday to secure the trophy for a fifth time under Emery, but the manager is already looking ahead to greater challenges.
“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.”
Emery rejected the label of “king of the Europa League”, preferring to focus on the future. “Play for Europe, play for trophies. 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,” he added.
A key factor in Villa’s success has been set-piece coach Austin MacPhee, whose work led to Youri Tielemans’ opening goal. Captain John McGinn praised MacPhee, saying: “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.” Emery called MacPhee “a really fantastic creator” and emphasised the importance of attention to detail.
Goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez revealed he played with a broken 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. “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.”
