Every word angry Unai Emery said about Monaco defeat, Duran mistake and Buendia
Unai Emery sat down with the media at the Stade Louis II after Aston Villa's 1-0 defeat to Monaco in the Champions League.
Wilfried Singo scored the only goal of the game early in the first half as Villa's chances of finishing in the top eight took a blow ahead of next week's final league phase clash against Celtic. Here is every word Emery said in his post-match press conference…
Unai, what went wrong today?
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"What is the reason? I could be here two days explaining it, in one minute it’s difficult. My point of view has two directions. One is to analyse each match, today how we played, I think we played 70 minutes like I wanted. Of course the opponent had the game plan as well. When they were keeping the ball position they didn’t threaten us a lot. The problem was set pieces, they scored one goal. More or less we controlled it and when we were with the ball we were trying to be organised, connecting with our two number 10s, Buendia and Rogers.
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"Buendia played a fantastic match, but we needed something more on the right side and a little bit more on the left side. Passing directly in the middle we had two or three chances to score. If we want to be at this level, we have to try and score those chances we had. Even after that I was more or less positive. In the second half we started the same. We were horrible in set-pieces, we were horrible. We had seven corners and not one close to scoring. When we are playing games like today, it’s important to get three points because I think we lost the opportunity to get in the top eight. Today was the key.
"The last 20 or 25 minutes, when we played with two strikers, we lost our positioning. This is the first part of my summary. Then it is about building a team in the mentality I want. We are being demanding with the players we have and some are not following the plan we are doing. This is the objective I have now, trying to build the team as strong as possible with a mentality we are building progressively.
"Of course, I am very happy with a lot of players. Today, especially with Emi Buendia, because he has the option to leave but today we needed him and he played fantastic with his qualities, fantastic mentality and fantastic with his commitment with the squad."
You played a day after Monaco over the weekend - were your players tired?
"Morgan was a little bit sick. I think Kamara, Tielemans, Konsa, Cash, Martinez and Tyrone played doing everything we were planning. We have some players injured. Some players in the attacking third maybe could have got something more but it’s not an excuse as we played 70 minutes very well. The last 20 mins we lost our position on the field. It wasn't because they were tired, it was because I decided to play with two strikers."
Is getting Watkins and Duran to work together a priority?
"We have two good strikers, playing together we have to try to be the same. We want to be strong in our structure. Today we didn’t do it, we didn’t achieve it, of course it is my challenge because both are very good players but today it didn't work well."
You had plenty of attacking talent, but little threat…
"I made a mistake when I decided to play with two strikers because in that moment we were more or less controlling the game. We were very weak in the middle and they were getting transition and went close to scoring the second ball. I took this decision trying to get better but I was watching and it was not working well."
Can you give us an example when you say that some players didn’t follow then plan?
[Points at his temple].
Do you think the mentality is not strong enough?
"We want it and we need it."
What are your thoughts on the Celtic game next week?
"We are in the Champions League, we are fantastic. We are doing a fantastic way in the Champions League. We are a contender for top eight, we didn’t get it today. We have to be excited that we’re in the next round. Today we lost one opportunity, everything we did before in the Champions League, beating Young Boys, Bayern, Bologna and Leipzig, wow, but we lost today."
