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What Unai Emery said in assessment of Villa’s pre-season win over St. Louis City

 Sumeet Paul  July 31, 2025
Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has hailed our pre-season preparations thus far after seeing his side secure a 2-1 win over St. Louis City in midweek.

Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins struck either side of half-time to help us on our way to victory, with a noticeable improvement in the performance from the players too as their fitness and sharpness continue to build back up.

READ MORE: Five key talking points as Villa secure win over St. Louis City in pre-season outing

While Villa face Nashville SC this weekend to wrap up our USA pre-season tour, we still have meetings with Roma, Marseille and Villarreal to come as we step up the level of opposition and test ourselves ahead of the new campaign.

Albeit Emery is still looking to share out minutes having used 22 players on Wednesday night, he is pleased with how the tour is progressing and the improvement he’s seeing from his players as we look to reach optimal condition ahead of our Premier League season opener against Newcastle United on August 16.

“We’re happy to be here and we’re happy to do our pre-season here in the United States, playing against St. Louis City,” he told VillaTV. “Our experiences playing here, against MLS teams, are always positive and, here as well, the opponent played well.

“Of course, we tried to share minutes with our players, playing everybody. The result is not important now. I think the environment was good, the fans enjoyed the match.

“Everything is positive.

“Our idea was to play 45 minutes with each player, get fit, try to continue working with our tactical idea. And try to adapt to our opponent as well, and I think they played differently in the first half to the second half.

“In the second half they were pushing more, higher, and we needed our build-up to be better than we did, even, because we lost the ball and it was a goal we conceded. But, of course, everything we are practising and playing, and everything that’s happened is positive to analyse and to try to get better.”

Despite the number of changes at the break, there were a lot of positives to take from this game in both halves, with the likes of Triston Rowe, John McGinn, Donyell Malen, Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins all impressing amongst others, and Villa were undoubtedly more effective in this outing compared to our previous three pre-season run-outs.

Naturally, the first thing is that we hope we continue to go through our summer schedule unscathed and avoid any significant injuries, but with the entire squad getting good minutes, it’s hoped that everyone will be raring to go when the competitive action returns next month.

Reinforcements are still needed given how quiet our summer transfer window has been thus far as well as considering who has left to see numbers fall, but time will tell just how active Villa intend to be in the coming weeks as ideally we’d have completed our business much earlier to give new recruits as much time as possible to integrate and adapt over pre-season.

Emery though is evidently focused on those who are at his disposal already, and the signs are certainly positive on that front as we continue to improve.

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