Emery reacts to Club América friendly

Unai Emery said his side’s performance levels are progressively getting better following the final game of the club’s USA tour on Saturday night.

Soldier Field hosted the third pre-season clash of Aston Villa’s time Stateside as they came up against Club América.

And despite the Liga MX champions taking the win 1-0, Emery says he gained plenty from the testing outing in Chicago.

“It was a great atmosphere here,” he said.

“This match in pre-season was to try to find our feet and to show ourselves against América with a lot of Mexican fans here. That was good for the atmosphere and for us to face it.

“We played trying to get fit and to work on things tactically, trying to show with our performance where we’re going with different players.

“The result was not good, but it gave me a lot of information.”

The squad will now travel back to the UK and ready themselves to play Athletic Bilbao on Wednesday.

Villa trained hard during their time in the USA and Emery feels they accomplished a lot during their stay, even if results didn’t go their way.

He said: “We are preparing to start our season in two weeks. Progressively the level is getting better and we play another two matches next week.

“We are thinking about how we can build a team and progressively get the performances collectively like we want. There are players joining us next week, four important players.

“Some players joined us last week and are progressively playing more. We are not in our best moment of pre-season but it’s normal.

“We lost three matches here and we don’t like it, but we are accepting it because we are in the pre-season and we are trying to get information out of the players.

“Today was a very good test in a great atmosphere. It was like playing away with all the Mexican fans here and they played very well.

“We were being competitive and during the season in the Premier League, Champions League, Carabao Cup and FA Cup we will face a lot of matches with a similar atmosphere.”