Fixtures
- Crystal Palace Vs. Aston Villa – Sun, May 19th 2024, 16:00
Unai Emery gave his final pre-match press conference of the season on Friday afternoon.
Aston Villa’s head coach spoke to members of the local and national media to preview Sunday’s season finale at Crystal Palace.
Here’s what he had to say…
On future objectives…
“When we were in the middle of the season, playing two matches at home against Manchester City and Arsenal and we won both, we were there. Those teams are amazingly consistent and competitive, with very good players.
“They have the best coaches as well – Mikel Arteta, Pep Guardiola. I want to get better always. I have my dreams and I believe in my dreams.
“My objective is to win the Premier League; my objective is to win the Champions League, but it’s very, very difficult. I want to dream with our supporters and the players and to believe always in our work.
“Of course, we’re not contenders, but it’s in our dreams to get something like that in Premier League or Champions League.”
On his favourite memories of the season…
“When we lost against Nottingham Forest away in November, before the match I told the players my objective was to be there (in the top five) at the end of the season.
“Tottenham were better than us. I wanted to compete with this team especially because I think we can be close to them, and if we are fighting there, we will get to be in the top five.
“After we lost the match, I told them, ‘Now, I believe more.’ For me, it was the best moment to believe with the players.”
On the progress at Aston Villa…
“I don’t like to stop and think about how much I did or how much we did. I prefer to think always about now and tomorrow. I want to enjoy it.
“I enjoyed being in the Conference League this year. I enjoyed the way we did and the experiences we had. We didn’t win but the experiences we had, with some players playing for the first time in Europe, was fantastic.
“Everything we are doing here is progressively getting better. If last year we got Conference League and we were very excited, the next step could be to get Europa League. But if we can get more than that, the Champions League is better.
“Always my idea is to try today to be better than yesterday and tomorrow better than today.”
On pushing for more next season…
“When I arrived here my conversations with Nassef (Sawiris) and Wes (Edens) were that I am here because I want to be a contender to get a trophy in each competition and I want to be in Europe.
“I wanted to be competitive with teams that are contenders more than us to be in the top ten. Always, to get there, we have to be very competitive. Even if we don’t have the budget like other teams, we have to be intelligent and clinical in our decisions.
“If we are doing it maybe we can take more budget for improving. This is still my objective with the club. If we are playing next year in Champions League and qualifying again it’s because we want to keep it.
“It’s very, very difficult, but this is our challenge.”
