Unai Emery Addresses Aston Villa’s Season Ambitions, Mings Incident, and Liverpool Match

Aston Villa manager Unai Emery held a press conference ahead of Saturday’s Premier League fixture against Liverpool, scheduled for an 20:00 GMT kick-off. The following are the main points from his media briefing: Regarding his seasonal objectives, Unai Emery stated that Villa is “enjoying the way we are doing”. He reflected on the previous season, noting, “Last year was a very successful season in the Premier League, getting to the Champions League. This year, the objective for us is to keep it”. He further commented that Villa is “increasing our level and demanding more” and aims to remain “consistent in the top positions”. Emery added, “There are another seven teams that we have to be more intelligent than and more competitive. After last year, we were a surprise when we were getting the fourth position. We are a competitive team to be in the top seven, top five, top four”. Addressing the handball incident involving Tyrone Mings, Emery remarked, “It’s football, we made a mistake and I want to forget it. It’s not necessary to speak about it again. The action was something that was not usual, it’s not normal. We had to try to understand the rule and then keep going.” Regarding his team’s readiness for the upcoming weekend match, he stated, “If we want to play in the Champions League or in Europe, if we want to be contenders for a trophy, we have to play three matches a week. If we are not able to play, focusing mentally and physically in this direction, we’re not going to get our objective. We’re training this afternoon and we’re going to prepare the match with the players and they’re going to be ready to play, mentally and physically. Hopefully on the field we can show our capacity to face them, competing and with the possibility to get points.” Commenting on Arne Slot’s Liverpool squad, Emery said, “Tomorrow at Liverpool will be completely difficult, they are the favourites to beat us. They are the favourites to win the Premier League this season, now in front of [Manchester] City and Arsenal because they started very well. Of course we are motivated, we are excited as well and we are keeping balance and tomorrow is an amazing match we are going to play in Liverpool and the team is doing the best this season in the Premier League and in the Champions League and it’s our challenge tomorrow.”