Unai Emery
Unai Emery insists consistency will be the biggest factor in Aston Villa chances of qualifying for Champions League football, which is one of the Spaniard’s targets during his tenure at the club. Villa qualified for European football for the first time in 13 years last season after a remarkable turnaround under Emery, who was appointed in November following the sacking of Steven Gerrard. Villa have since added three top players to Emery’s squad so far this summer, with Pau Torres, Youri Tielemans and Moussa Diaby joining the club. Only Manchester City have won more Premier League points than Villa since the turn of the year, and Emery is targeting a strong campaign ahead as Villa compete across all four fronts.
Unai Emery said: “We have to be a candidate to be in the top seven, that is our challenge. The present and the future for me at Aston Villa is try to play in the Champions League, that is my dream. Then, try to have the option to win a trophy, that is another challenge. My challenge here is to win trophies, minimum one trophy, but try to improve being a candidate for different trophies, in Europe, in the league, in the FA Cup, the Carabao Cup. We have to work a lot and we have to be very, very competitive if we want to achieve it.”
And Emery described how each new arrival would help his team next season.
Unai Emery added: “Each one has their characteristics but everyone has experiences and they’ve gotten trophies as well. Diaby is trying to help us offensively, a player who can run behind and can as well give passes and goals. He’s not high scoring but he is a winger or second striker. Youri Tielemans’ experience is at a high level. Leicester played Champions League, they won a title and in the national team he is playing regularly. In the middle it is very important for us to add a player being consistent and with Youri Tielemans we have more capacity and options to play with two or with three. Pau Torres at centre-back, he is going to help us in the build-up, he is going to help us have four players as a central defender playing sometimes as a two or a three. We are always trying to build up with three players, or defending with four. Sometimes we can spread out one right and left with a centre-back. Defensively we were very strong last year and we will try to keep doing the same and then with the ball try to improve things, I think we can do.”
