Aston Villa secured a stunning 1-0 win over Manchester City on Wednesday night, and Unai Emery was delighted with the performance from his players.
Leon Bailey’s second-half goal proved to be the winner on a memorable night at Villa Park, as Villa deservedly picked up all three points and moved into third place in the Premier League table.
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Aside from a superb early double-save from Emiliano Martinez, Villa were able to limit the visitors and control the game throughout, thus leading to countless openings and excellent overall play across the pitch from the entire side.
Such was the impressive nature of the display, both individually and collectively, it’s difficult to pick out players for special praise, and Emery not only emphasised that point in his post-match interview, but he also paid tribute to the Villa supporters who created an exceptional atmosphere as we made it 14 consecutive home Premier League wins.
“Hopefully we’ll have more matches like tonight and we can face more challenges being successful in the Premier League and Europe,” he told VillaTV. “Tonight was fantastic and each match is a target we are facing. Tonight with our supporters here in Villa Park it was a great atmosphere.
“We enjoyed it a lot and transmitted our energy to them and they transmitted their energy to us. The atmosphere was fantastic.”
Importantly, the Villa boss continues to keep feet on the ground for all concerned and a level head, as he played down talk of us being title contenders, despite the fact that we’re four points adrift of the leaders after 15 games.
Emery is right to do so as we simply must be focused on the next game and take it a week at a time, as although we have quality and experience in this squad, we’ve not been involved in that particular race previously and there is a long way to go in the campaign.
That in turn risks getting ahead of ourselves and losing focus, but we can absolutely still enjoy every minute of this era we’re in under Emery. If we can continue to build and progress, we’ll hopefully show more positive signs on Saturday as we prepare for another difficult assignment against Arsenal, and it’s all part of the journey of where we hope to get to.
“We are looking at the table and we are happy to be there,” he added. “We are not contenders. In 38 matches we have to try to take the challenge to be consistent like we are.
“We can feel we are there and we have to believe we are there, but we have to keep the balance. We have another amazing challenge on Saturday here with our supporters at Villa Park against Arsenal.
“We have to enjoy it, prepare the match as professionals being responsible with our work and then focus on the demands we are going to face.”
Tell me Arsenal isn’t nervous?