Aston Villa boss Unai Emery was pleased with our 2-1 win over Valencia on Saturday, and with our pre-season preparations as a whole.
Goals from Ollie Watkins and Emiliano Buendia saw us conclude our pre-season schedule with a victory to pick up the Trofeu Taronja, and while we conceded late on, it was another solid performance overall from the players.
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Naturally, while there were plenty of positives to take from the game, Emery will also have seen a number of areas where we can still improve, but having had a good pre-season, it has hopefully been the ideal preparation for our Premier League season opener against Newcastle Utd next weekend.
Speaking on the game at the Mestalla itself, Emery was happy with the experience and what the players will hopefully have taken from it moving forward as we got another 90 minutes against solid European opposition.
“Today was a really tough match, it’s always difficult to play away,” he told VillaTV. “We have to be competitive, we weren’t brilliant in the 90 minutes, we didn’t control the game like we wanted, but I think we competed well and progressively over the 90 minutes, we took our moment to control better than we were doing, but we scored two goals, didn’t concede a lot of chances, small mistake not the goal.
“When we do our analysis of the pre-season, I am happy. Happy with the matches we played, next week we are starting against Newcastle away as well, and we have to take the best good things we are doing and then try to be competitive and start the season strong.”
Another important factor over the USA tour and this week, was for the players to get used to playing matches in quick succession, as we hope to play a significant number of games this year if we qualify for the group stage of the Europa Conference League.
That will see us regularly play on Thursdays and Sundays, and with the inclusion of the domestic cup competitions on top of that too, it promises to be a gruelling schedule that we’ll need to cope with if we want to compete on multiple fronts.
Emery also reemphasised the importance that the supporters will play moving forward too, as he was delighted with the numbers that travelled to Valencia, and insisted again that he wants to build both a small family within the squad, but also a bigger one which includes the fans who he wants to be excited and connected with the team.
“We were speaking about pre-season, we have to try to adapt quickly,” he added. “We are going to play this year hopefully a lot of matches, of course the Europa Conference League is our first objective as well, but to start the Premier League next week, we have to be aware that hopefully it’s going to be a long season. We are going to hopefully play a lot of matches on Thursday and then on Sunday, FA Cup, Carabao Cup, we did the pre-season thinking we have to tactically work on different things and we were practicing some tactical decisions.
“Overall, I am happy. We have to be ready and everybody very excited with our supporters for the first match against Newcastle. It’s our objective now, to start the season well as possible, being very competitive. The supporters have to enjoy with us, a lot of supporters following us here, we have to build and create a small family inside, a big family outside, be responsible and mature, be demanding in our way and of course enjoy the way with our supporters. We have to be excited, and connected with the supporters.”
It’s been an enjoyable and productive pre-season this summer, with our new players settling in well, the group from last season continuing to adapt and improve under Emery’s guidance and with our fitness levels hopefully where they need to be for the start of competitive football.
While we’ll hope to welcome back some of our injured players later this month, the squad is looking strong and well prepared, and time will tell if the pre-season schedule has also given the club’s hierarchy an opportunity to assess and identify where we might still need to strengthen.
