Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has given his thoughts on our 2-0 win over Fulham in Orlando on Wednesday night, with just one game now remaining on our USA pre-season tour.
After our draw with Newcastle Utd on Sunday in Philadelphia, the Spanish tactician would have been hoping to see progress in our level of performance, while he also rotated and tweaks things tactically to continue to find different solutions within the squad.
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While Ezri Konsa started at right-back, Moussa Diaby came off the bench for his first appearance in a Villa shirt and scored, and there were certainly a number of positives from the display, both individually and as a collective.
Villa face Brentford in Washington on Sunday before heading home, and it’s hoped that Emery has gotten many answers over the course of this pre-season trip to help us prepare in the best possible way for the new campaign.
“There were some very good things, one of them is that Jaden (Philogene) scored and a good goal as well for Moussa Diaby,” he told VillaTV. “We shared minutes with different players and tried to do something different, tactically, with Ezri Konsa.
“We didn’t control the game like we wanted and we lost more ball than we have to to control the match. Overall, I’m happy with the result, with different players and practicing in different ways tactically. We have to continue being positive.”
An interesting point that the Villa boss made was how the schedule this week mirrors what we’ll face if we qualify for the group stage of the Europa Conference League, and so managing that schedule, rotating the side and growing used to that in terms of how it alters training plans will be key moving forward.
He used 21 players on Wednesday night against Fulham, and it’s likely that we’ll see more changes to the starting XI at the weekend as well as a raft of substitutions from half-time onwards again.
That’s crucial though to ensure everyone is match fit and sharp, but perhaps as we move closer to friendlies against Lazio and Valencia on our return from this trip, we’ll start to see clearer indications as to what Villa XI Emery prefers for that opening Premier League game against Newcastle on August 12.
“We’re playing three matches in seven days, so it’s practice for when we’re going to play Premier League, Conference League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup.
“Now, in pre-season, we have to use different players and to balance minutes with the players. We have to now prepare the next match against Brentford.
“We will play with the same players but trying to mix minutes.”