Aston Villa boss Unai Emery was left disappointed after seeing his side suffer a 1-0 defeat to Monaco in the Champions League.
The hosts took the lead after just eight minutes through a Wilfried Singo header, and although Villa had chances to turn the game around, we weren’t clinical enough and ended up rueing those missed opportunities.
READ MORE: Villa player ratings vs Monaco: Poor performance ends in frustrating defeat
Combined with a sloppy overall performance that lacked the required quality to come out on top against talented European opposition, it was a bitterly disappointing and frustrating night for Villa in what feels like a big chance missed to strengthen our hopes of qualifying for the next phase directly through a top-eight finish.
While he didn’t necessarily single out any individuals for criticism or go over-board with his frustration, this is arguably as critical and frustrated as the Villa boss has sounded in some time.
He took on responsibility for the result himself as his decision to bring on Jhon Duran and pair him with Ollie Watkins up top didn’t work as we looked less of a threat after that change, but it’s clear that he wasn’t pleased with what he saw from the players either, even if he didn’t share that publicly.
Whether it was those missed chances, our complete lack of threat on set-pieces or perhaps even the mentality of some in these type of games, there is seemingly a lot that Emery feels still needs to be worked on if we are to make the level of progress that he’s demanding.
“We played 70 minutes very well,” he told VillaTV. “We conceded one goal because in the set pieces we weren’t working well defensively and even offensively were worse than defensively. We conceded one goal from a corner.
“We had more options in our attack with our corners and we didn’t do very good. Playing the match for 70 minutes, more or less, we created chances to score.
“In the match, for 70 minutes we were controlling the game like we planned before. We didn’t score but we were in a good way to get it.
“In the last 20 minutes we lost a little bit our positioning on the field and we didn’t work really well with two strikers. This is our challenge and we have to get it.”
“If we want to be at this level, we have to try and score those chances we had,” he added in his post-match press conference. “Even after that I was more or less positive. In the second half we started the same. We were horrible in set-pieces, we were horrible. We had seven corners and not one close to scoring. When we are playing games like today, it’s important to get three points because I think we lost the opportunity to get in the top eight. Today was the key.
“We are being demanding with the players we have and some are not following the plan we are doing. This is the objective I have now, trying to build the team as strong as possible with a mentality we are building progressively.
“We lost. It was my mistake. I made a mistake when I decided to play with two strikers and we lost the positioning. Because until the moment, we were more or less controlling of the game.”
Villa now face a huge week as after hosting West Ham Utd in the Premier League on Sunday, Celtic visit Villa Park next week in a game we must now win to try and get a top-eight spot, while results elsewhere will have to go in our favour too.
In turn, a response is absolutely now expected from the players, but Emery still has things he must refine and improve too, as we’ve arguably coasted through much of this season and lacked the same bite and intensity that made us so difficult to play against last year.
While that’s perhaps a result of having such a packed fixture list and the strain of juggling Premier League and Champions League football, something must surely change eventually as rather than arguably prioritising lasting the distance, we need to restore that sense of inevitably being able to run over teams in games like this.
