What Unai Emery told Donyell Malen after leaving him out of Villa's Champions League squad
Unai Emery admits it wasn't easy for him to tell Donyell Malen that he had been left out of Aston Villa's Champions League squad for the knockout rounds.
UEFA rules stipulate that Villa could only add three new players to the squad which they named for the league phase, despite letting go of six players from List A in the winter window. Only clubs whose domestic league start and finish in the same calendar year have the possibility of adding more than three players.
Villa signed five players in the winter window, starting with Malen and Andres Garcia for a combined £26m. Then, three loan moves were completed in as many days at the end of the window as Marcus Rashford, Marco Asensio and Axel Disasi all signed on.
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Emery opted to include all three loan arrivals, while also leaving out Andres Garcia, the 21-year-old right-back who joined from Levante last month.
"It was not easy, the conversation with him [Malen]," Emery admitted. "It is not fair but the rules pushed us to take the decision and I explained to him why we took it. Of course, he accepted but it is not easy for him to be with us now and not playing in the Champions League.
"But we have other objectives, the FA Cup and also the Premier League as a priority. We needed to take the decision in the Champions League for the rules, in the window we did more than we wanted.
"How we are now in the squad with some centre-backs not being available and being injured, I spoke with him and tried to be honest and knowing it was not fair for him. But the necessity decision I had to take was in that direction.
"Today he was training well and of course he is going to play hopefully for a long time here and hopefully in the Champions League for the next years."
