Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has revealed his delight with how his players have responded after our difficult start to the season having secured a 2-1 win over Burnley on Sunday.
Villa struggled through the opening few weeks of the Premier League campaign, as our performances were miles off where they needed be, and results undoubtedly reflected that.
However, there has been an upturn in form over the past week or so, as we’ve now registered four consecutive wins across the Premier League and Europa League, and so confidence, belief and momentum are certainly back in favour heading into the latest international break.
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There was a scare late on in our win over Burnley, as after suffering a blow to the face, Emiliano Buendia was forced off and looked to be in real discomfort as he made his way off the pitch.
Emery allayed fears over the Argentine playmaker with further tests undoubtedly set to follow, but the Villa boss was keen to praise the supporters, his players and specific individuals after seeing us produce another positive display to secure three crucial points and extend our winning run.
“I saw Emi Buendia and he is recovering. Hopefully it is not more but he is still getting better,” Emery said, as quoted by BBC Sport.
“Here in Villa Park we have to make it a fortress, we have to compete and we are finishing before the international break in good balance. We are feeling more comfortable than we were. I am really happy how the players have responded with our demands.
Squad options: “We recover [from injury] Ross Barkley and Amadou Onana. Lamare Bogarde is playing fantastic, he is adapting to our demands. Hopefully we can keep getting better and adding more players. We have other players to help us. Today, very grateful to the supporters and now we are going to rest for two weeks. We will be motivated and excited for the rest of the season.”
On Donyell Malen: “We settled him a little bit with some technical balance. He was close to score and he scored, fantastic.”
Bogarde certainly deserves the praise he received above, as the talented youngster is growing into his place in the squad as he showed his quality in both phases of the game this weekend with his defensive strengths and composure in possession.
Naturally, it’s a major boost to get Ross Barkley and Amadou Onana back from injury with Youri Tielemans hopefully set to follow over the break, and so that will perhaps see the 21-year-old drop down the pecking order in the coming weeks.
However, he had a job to do for the team over the past fortnight, and he’s stepped up, shown his potential and growing confidence, and hopefully we’ll see a lot more of that as the season progresses, with Villa undoubtedly needing numbers to compete on multiple fronts.
For now though, things certainly feel a lot better compared to a couple of weeks ago, as our winning habit has returned, and hopefully we can maintain it after the break when we head to Tottenham on October 19.