Aston Villa boss Unai Emery was pleased with his side’s reaction and performance in our 2-0 win over Everton at Goodison Park on Saturday.
Goals from Ollie Watkins and Emiliano Buendia secured all three points, as Villa were made to battle and withstand plenty of Everton pressure in the opening hour, but produced key moments at both ends of the pitch to come out on top.
READ MORE: Villa player ratings vs Everton: Watkins, Buendia decisive in crucial win
After three consecutive defeats and having conceded 11 goals in those three outings, Villa needed to improve defensively and so the clean sheet would undoubtedly have been welcomed by Emery and the team as a whole.
Importantly though, we were able to build on that more solid foundation and produce quality to find breakthroughs, with Watkins making it five goals in five games as he showed confidence from the penalty spot to break the deadlock.
Buendia wasted little time in making an impact off the bench as after playing a key role in the lead up to the penalty being awarded as John McGinn was fouled, the Argentine playmaker showed real quality to grab a goal of his own to double our lead and make the win safe.
Emery was pleased that his side stuck to the game-plan and tried to play our way in the win, but as ever, he was also demanding in what he wants to see improve moving forward.
“We needed to win,” he told BBC Sport. “We had to win in our way. We reacted very well to some moments we were struggling, trying to break the pressure. We were feeling better on the pitch after the first goal.
“We need the players [in the squad]. Emiliano Buendia, he was involved in the penalty, and every goal we’re scoring we’re happy with Watkins doing it but I want to add more players scoring. We were very competitive.
“We were planning to win with a clean sheet. We were compact defensively.
“We were trying to keep our balance. I think the only real strange, the real bad performance was against Leicester. Manchester City were better than us, Arsenal were good as well. Maybe we could have taken more points against Arsenal but they were better than us.
“Now our challenge is at home, how we can control the game better than we are doing. We have to think about each match how we can face it. Perfect today. It was really good how we reacted after three matches we lost.
“We have to be realistic. We are winning, we are losing. At the beginning it was trying to be top 10. We have to win more matches. [We’ll] try to create, to build a team to build a small family between us.”
It was noticeable that after speaking at length last week about wanting to see us control the game better, Emery saw his players stay patient and composed in our passing out from the back and we continued to play that way throughout.
Consistency is crucial now as we try to put another good run of form together, and especially at home where we’ve struggled under his stewardship thus far, it will be an important test to see how much progress and development we’re making.
There were plenty of positive signs this weekend even though we did come under a lot of pressure, but it’s a big result in itself after a poor run and it will hopefully continue to build confidence and belief in the players in terms of what we’re trying to build under Emery and the style he’s pushing to implement.