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.
“We played trying to get fit and to work on things tactically, trying to show with our performance where we’re going with different players,” he told the media, as per the club’s official site. “The result was not good, but it gave me a lot of information.
“We are preparing to start our season in two weeks. Progressively the level is getting better and we play another two matches next week.
“We are thinking about how we can build a team and progressively get the performances collectively like we want. There are players joining us next week, four important players. Some players joined us last week and are progressively playing more. We are not in our best moment of pre-season but it’s normal.
“We lost three matches here and we don’t like it, but we are accepting it because we are in the pre-season and we are trying to get information out of the players.
“Today was a very good test in a great atmosphere. It was like playing away with all the Mexican fans here and they played very well. We were being competitive and during the season in the Premier League, Champions League, Carabao Cup and FA Cup we will face a lot of matches with a similar atmosphere.”
Coupled with our media obligations and commitment to growing the club’s brand and reach during this trip, it can be considered a success on and off the pitch to an extent, and although it would have been ideal to rack up more wins after impressing against Walsall and Spartak Trnava, the most important thing is that we are at our best when we travel to West Ham Utd on August 17.
It’s certainly going to be more beneficial for us if Emery and his coaching staff are able to identify and fix issues and concerns now rather than two or three games into the new campaign, and that is what pre-season is fundamentally for alongside getting the players fit, and from that perspective, it’s hoped that it has perfectly served its purpose as we prepare for the return of competitive football in two weeks time.
