Aston Villa boss Unai Emery remained upbeat despite seeing his side surrender a two-goal lead in our 2-2 draw with Chelsea in the Premier League on Saturday night.
Villa were in a strong position at half-time as we opened up a two-goal advantage in the opening 45 minutes, courtesy of a Marc Cucurella own goal and an excellent effort from Morgan Rogers as he continues to impress.
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However, the warning signs in the first half weren’t heeded as Chelsea continued to enjoy plenty of possession and carved open opportunities, and eventually they launched a comeback to secure a share of the spoils.
Villa looked passive and panicked in the second half in particular, as we lacked our usual control and fluidity to impose ourselves on the encounter and protect our lead more effectively and efficiently.
Nevertheless, as he has done all season, Emery emphasised the positives rather than highlight the negatives, as they will no doubt be addressed with the team at Bodymoor Heath next week, but he is always eager to not lose sight of our achievements so far this season and the position we’re still in.
“We are very happy because today we achieved the first thing improving,” he said after the game, as per BBC Sport. “We wanted to play Europa League last year and now we have a new challenge which is to play Champions League.
“Chelsea today showed the power. But, we are being consistent in 35 matches to draw at the end is a very good result.
“I want more, of course.
“Chelsea have very good players. The result was amazing in the first half. We were defending well and we didn’t concede a lot but of course we needed to keep more possession and it is difficult against Chelsea.
“We have to try to keep being consistent with the players we have and I believe in the players.
“Very happy. We were winning 2-0 but today we achieved one very great objective we had during the season – to get Europa League, and to still be a contender with Tottenham trying to get fourth position.
“You have to motivated, excited, very proud of our work. Chelsea are a very good team. We got one point. Chelsea played very well.
“In 35 matches we are being consistent. I accept everything happened.”
Villa now sit seven points ahead of Tottenham in fourth place, albeit they have three games in hand on us, starting with the north London derby against Arsenal on Sunday.
While it would have been ideal to keep winning and put more pressure on them to respond, it wasn’t to be as we still showed that we’re improving and learning from different situations.
Naturally, it’s important to not lose sight of our campaign thus far and that Chelsea were impressive and we won’t command and control every game in the way we want to, but ultimately after dropping points against Brentford at home not long ago, it’s undoubtedly an area in which we have to improve.
Emery though will now switch our focus to Olympiacos on Thursday in our Europa Conference League semi-final tie first leg, and we’ll hopefully see Spurs drop points before getting back to winning ways in the league at Brighton next weekend.