Aston Villa boss Unai Emery expressed his pride in his team after securing a crucial 1-0 win over Bournemouth on Saturday evening.
Ollie Watkins struck with the only goal of the game just before half-time, and it’s a fundamental victory for Villa in our ongoing pursuit of a top-five finish to secure Champions League qualification.
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With two more games to go, we still have a job to do and require results elsewhere to go in our favour, but for the third consecutive season, we have secured European football of some level after our win this weekend, and that is a magnificent achievement in itself to reiterate the progress and development we’ve seen at the club, on and off the pitch, since Emery was appointed.
Naturally, all concerned want to go for more still and so focus will quickly switch to Tottenham next Friday night, but Emery was keen to praise his players and the club’s owners as we continue to compete at the top level, and he also had praise for Watkins after he became Villa’s all-time top Premier League goalscorer.
“I am very proud of the team and grateful for the owners and the way they are supporting us and are ambitious,” he told BBC Match of the Day. “They are very focused in different competitions and achieving different objectives and the most important for us is the Premier League to once again get Europe. We are in the run for it and we are competing today with the demands we are increasing in the dressing room. The players, we try to get out of our pressure something positive.
“It is the best competition in the world and we are winning matches and we can be a good contender. We are winning to try and be there. The first objective is to try and play in Europe again and we are feeling comfortable with the pressure we are setting ourselves. We are fighting with Manchester City and Chelsea and we fight for Europe.”
On Ollie Watkins:Â “Fantastic. Brilliant. We are here, collectively achieving our objective. Ollie Watkins is fantastic. He played consistently here and he is very humble. Trying to improve every day sand he is not relaxing. He played fantastic. We were very demanding how we we needed to press them and threaten them.
“We did it collectively and over 90 minutes very good work. We did not concede a lot of chances. But how we compete and defend, I am so proud of them.”
Emery went on to further discuss the game and what the outcome means for us, and it was clear that he was eager to balance that pride of our latest achievement under his stewardship, with the focus and determination of still having so much to play for this season.
With both Tottenham and Manchester United perhaps distracted by their upcoming encounter in the Europa League final, it was felt ahead of this weekend that a trip to Bournemouth would be our most difficult remaining assignment.
While that may well be true, we still need to produce two more performances and get the job done in our final two outings otherwise this win will have meant nothing, and Emery will undoubtedly be stressing that to the players when they reconvene at Bodymoor Heath for training.
That said, the Villa boss was certainly keen to praise his players for the effort they put in at the Vitality Stadium, and it’s hoped that we can continue to carry that momentum and confidence into the next game to keep putting pressure on our rivals in the standings to ensure they know we’re ready to pounce if they slip up.
“The players compete very well,” Emery told Sky Sports, as per BBC Sport. “It’s difficult here because Bournemouth are performing fantastic. We are in Europe. Champions League, Europa League or Conference League. Of course we want to try to get our best dreams of playing Champions League again but there are teams in front of us. With this victory we now have the possibility to get it.
On qualifying for Europe:Â “We have to play Tottenham at home and we must focus on this game. Of course it is important. We have to do our work and do it like we did today. To play in Europe for the third year in a row, I am so happy.
On surviving with ten men:Â “I told the players we needed to focus for 90 minutes and injury time. Don’t watch the result or the time because we need to focus. If we can score the second goal even better. We needed the defence, the clean sheet was very important. They had some chances, especially at end but we had 10 players and we kept a clean sheet.
On Cash’s late clearance:Â “We dominated the first half and had chances to score. Then they had the opportunity to get something, then we needed the goalkeeper and Cash to help.
On Watkins breaking Villa’s Premier League scoring record:Â “Very good of course. Achieving this for Ollie Watkins is fantastic. Through it we are also taking more points and winning today but we are also trying to set the objectives and achieving it like we did today with Watkins.
On Villa’s momentum:Â “We are so motivated. We are finishing the season but we have the ambitious objective in front of us. We are the third year here in a row getting Europe, it’s fantastic. I don’t want to finish the season, I want to recover the players and then think about Tottenham at home.”
On facing Tottenham: “Focus on this match. Recover, then rest. Focus goes on Friday against Tottenham at home at Villa Park.”
