Aston Villa boss Unai Emery was delighted with his players as they dug deep and secured a 2-1 win at Basel in the Europa League on Thursday night.
Goals from Evann Guessand and Youri Tielemans proved to be enough to defeat our Swiss opponents, who found an equaliser just after the half-hour mark and threatened to snatch a share of the spoils late on.
However, Villa were able to hold on to pick up all three points, and that in turn keeps us in third place in the standings, joint-top with 15 points with two games to go, and moving closer to securing a direct path to the knockout phase of the competition.
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With the benefit of having home games in the second leg through to the semi-finals that comes with finishing in the top two in the league phase, Emery will hope to see his players continue to push on, but he was delighted with what they showed in this clash, which came just days after a big effort to overcome Arsenal in the Premier League.
“I am happy and we knew before the match the difficulties we were facing today,” he told TNT Sports, as quoted by BBC Sport. “After the last matches, a lot of wars. Brilliant wars for us, after our victory against Arsenal, it is not easy to recover our spirit and structure and mentality to keep the same hard work. We struggled today and the last 10 minutes they were close to drawing but I am happy with how we got this victory. It is difficult to beat them here.
“Our idea at the start of the season was to manage all the players and give them the chance to play and help us. How we are managing it like today, I like how they are responding and how we are building the team with every player.
“It was the plan, to start with Lamare [Bogarde] because they needed fresh legs. Youri can get into the opponent’s box and score like he did. Other players as well made an impact. We needed that. We needed them to win duels. In the last 10 minutes, they were pushing and we need our players fighting like they did.”
While it could be argued that the Villa boss would like to see more from certain individuals who perhaps struggled to take their chance to impress in midweek, it was important to rotate, rest key individuals and continue to give minutes to those who are still adapting and striving to show their best form.
Villa will now switch focus to West Ham United on Sunday, as we go in search of our ninth consecutive win across all competitions and continue an incredible run of form as we move closer to the Christmas period.