Aston Villa boss Unai Emery shared his reaction to our 1-0 defeat to Club América in Chicago on Saturday night, as well as our USA pre-season tour as a whole.
Villa fell to losses to Columbus Crew, RB Leipzig and Club América over the past week or so, and so many will perhaps be left disappointed and concerned by our form this summer.
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However, given the countless mitigating factors which include the travel, intensive training sessions, heat, players integrating back at differing stages, entire line-ups being changed at half-time and so on, results are certainly not at the forefront of Emery’s mind at this stage in our preparations.
What was important was to come away from the tour without any new injuries, for the players to be fitter and closer to peak condition ahead of the new season starting, and our new players getting minutes to settle in and establish themselves in the Villa XI.
With that in mind, many key boxes were ticked, and Emery was keen to re-emphasise that point in his post-match press conference, as he spoke about being able to take a significant amount of information away from these games and his players.