What Emery said in assessment of Villa’s draw at Wolves

Aston Villa boss Unai Emery felt our 1-1 draw with Wolves was a fair result, but conceded that he was frustrated by our performance on Sunday.

Hwang Hee-chan gave the hosts the lead at Molineux in the 53rd minute, but our response was swift as Pau Torres drew us level just two minutes later.

READ MORE: Villa player ratings vs Wolves: Trio key in battling display in draw

While Villa did well to get a foothold in the early stages and start to gain control of proceedings, we lacked our usual rhythm and quality in our build-up play to prise Wolves open and create more opportunities.

There was drama in the latter stages as we began to build sustained pressure and create chances, with Ollie Watkins hitting the post with the last touch of the game, but we couldn’t find that killer breakthrough on this occasion and had to settle for a point, with Wolves reduced to 10 men in injury time too.

Given his demands and the high standards that he’s looking to set, Emery was disappointed that we only picked up a point on Sunday, but overall, he felt as though the result was a fair reflection of the game.

“I’m very happy with the month we’ve had because I think we’ve progressed,” Emery told VillaTV. “We took some points against difficult teams: Chelsea, Brighton and today one point. I was heavily disappointed during the match because I was thinking it was a good opportunity to take three points.

“Here, they are very strong and it’s a derby. I was thinking if we improved some things on the pitch we could win.

“We were closer to winning than not. We were respecting them because they’re amazing on the transition. They did two, three or four transitions and scored one goal.

“I was very frustrated with their goal because it was something we can avoid. But we reacted very, very quick, we scored and the match was level.

“The result was fair 11v11 but after the red card, we had chances to push on, get into their box and score. At the end of the match, if we were winning, it would have been fair as well.

“We really prepared the match and we were really concentrated to go into the break taking three points today.

“We did everything and the players were focused on the match. We worked in the way we were doing but we can’t always take three points.

“We have to be really happy with the points we have and how we are progressing as a team, trying to build a team.”

There was tension at the end of the game it seemed as the two coaches didn’t shake hands before Emery went down the tunnel, but the Villa boss has explained what happened.

It was a scrappy game with plenty of fouls committed, and tempers were flaring at times both on the pitch and on the sidelines with John McGinn seen in conversation with the Wolves bench at one point.

However, Emery has dismissed the situation and insisted that there was nothing to it.

“Nothing,” Emery added, as per the Athletic, on what happened with Gary O’Neil at the full-time whistle. “I was waiting to tell him congratulations, shake his hand and he was speaking to the assistant referee and I left. Simply.”

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