Aston Villa boss Unai Emery was delighted with our 4-1 win over West Ham Utd on Sunday, but continues to demand more from his players to build on it.
A brace from Douglas Luiz and goals from Ollie Watkins and Leon Bailey sealed the victory and three points, as Villa moved back up to fifth place in the Premier League table.
READ MORE: Villa player ratings vs West Ham: Decisive trio superb in excellent win
It was also an 11th consecutive home league win as we continue to impress at Villa Park, having also scored 17 goals in four home matches while conceding just three so far this season.
While our focus will switch to the Europa Conference League in midweek, this win continues an impressive start to the domestic campaign overall, but naturally, while Emery was pleased with the performance and result, he continues to be demanding of key players such as Luiz to continue to improve and take their game further.
Villa were excellent for the most part in terms of our patience and composure in building our play, and although there was a period early in the second half where we seemed to lose our way, the players showed resilience, character and quality in a crucial moment to get ourselves back on track towards the three points.
“We are feeling very good at home with our fans. We tried to add to the support and energy,” he is quoted as saying by BBC Sport. “We are trying to be positive and play in our style. We did well across the 90 minutes and imposed ourselves for most of us.
“For me to play at home is always something special. We have to believe and always connect with the fans.
“We have to be focused and strong defensively, but then create a bigger noise with the fans by making them feel they are playing with us.
“It’s credit to him [Luiz], firstly. He has to be demanding in everything and he is doing. I am very happy with him.
“But I think he can do better. There were some moments after he scored the two goals where we were trying to control the game and I wasn’t happy because he was too relaxed.
“We have to see where we can improve in everybody. I was very demanding off the players to try and score another goal. After the third goal we controlled the game.”
Given what he has achieved in his coaching career to date as well as the ambitions that he has with us moving forward, Emery will undoubtedly be targeting silverware and breaking into the top four in the Premier League as we continue to progress and develop.
The Spaniard was seemingly keen to avoid being dragged into a conversation about those objectives though, as he limited his response to talking about being in the battle for the top seven in the league, but he will no doubt continue to demand the best from his players to reach higher heights.
Villa’s consistency and ruthlessness against top opposition has been so impressive so far this season, and while every game will continue to be a challenge, there is a real feel of momentum building as we enter another critical phase of the campaign in terms of a packed upcoming fixture schedule.
“We are not contenders to be in the top four or in the top seven teams in the beginning but of course we need to take our dreams,” he added. “One of our dreams is to be with the top seven teams and to do something in Europe. To get European football is very important and that is the work we need to try to do. We need to be consistent in what we are doing.”
“We are facing very good players, very good teams. When they scored, we reacted very well.
“That’s my demands with the players. Try to be consistent with our game plan and, with our scoring, we have to keep going. When we concede goals, we have to react quickly to recover our positioning and our game plan.”
On Ollie Watkins, he added: “Brilliant, brilliant. He’s very competitive. He can add goals for the team and he did. It was fantastic.”
