Aston Villa boss Unai Emery expressed his happiness with how our pre-season preparations are going so far after a 2-2 draw with Eintracht Frankfurt.
Although results at this stage of the summer mean very little, if anything at all, following defeats to Walsall and Hansa Rostock, it had been hoped that we’d see a bit more from Villa as we kicked off our USA pre-season tour in Louisville on Saturday night.
READ MORE: Five key talking points as Villa pick up draw vs Eintracht Frankfurt in pre-season clash
Partly down to the intensity and tempo shown by our opponents, it proved to be a much more competitive contest, and it would certainly have been the type of pre-season test that the Villa players would have wanted as we edge closer to the start of a new campaign.
Given 21 players featured in total as we ensure everyone gets minutes as well as sufficient rest amid an intense pre-season training schedule too, Emery is pleased with how things have progressed thus far, and he was happy with the test that his players got from Frankfurt this weekend.
“We’re happy here and we’re working in our pre-season, building the team, trying to keep our same structure we had the last year tactically and improving things, adapting as everything is changing so quickly in football,” Emery told VillaTV. “Here we played 90 minutes against a team who will play in the Champions League this year. They’re a good team, good players and it was a good test for us.
“We started in the first two weeks with a lot of young players from the Academy. Of course, for them it’s very important as well to play and train with us.
“Now we’re adding the players who were arriving later for different circumstances, like playing with the national team. This is the first match they played, they got 45 minutes, they’re getting fit, good rhythm individually and collectively, tactically as well, to start doing things we will want to do this year.”
While the hope is that we’ll see some reinforcements arrive sooner rather than later to raise the level within the squad, Emery has to work with what is already at his disposal, and he has a highly talented and experienced squad available to him.
Being able to get a full pre-season in with them will be fundamental after a disrupted summer last year due to international commitments and injuries, not only from a fitness perspective but also to find that rhythm and quality of play on a consistent basis again, with everyone best prepared as possible both individually and collectively.
The expectation is that minutes will ramp up for those who will settle into our preferred starting line-up in our remaining two games on this tour, but there was a lot to be positive about coming away from this encounter in particular as it was a challenging and useful pre-season contest to really start to increase the heat on the players.
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