2026-01-30 15:00:27
Unai Emery was pleased with Aston Villa’s fightback against RB Salzburg in the Europa League.
The Villans fought back from two goals down to seal a 3-2 win and a top-two league phase finish on Thursday (29.01.26) and the coach was “happy” to see his side turn the match around.
Emery said: “Europe always is difficult. It’s difficult to beat the opponents away and home.
“Today we faced a team needing to win to have a chance to qualify and their idea is to get a lot of duels always going forward and we struggled in the first and second half, losing 2-0.
“But, how we reacted is something like in the league in the process we have this year. Of course, (I’m) very happy (with) the performance collective and individual good things but other things we must try to avoid for the next matches.
“Overall (I’m) happy and today we used some young players – for them it’s very important to have chances to show their progress.
“This competition is very important. (The) priority is Premier League but this is (the) second objective. How we connected with (the) fans today…they created atmosphere, helping us – and we reacted because of the energy.”
On-loan midfielder Harvey Elliott made his first Villa appearance since October in the game but Emery suggested that he won’t be featuring regularly – with the club obliged to buy the midfielder from Liverpool if he makes 10 appearances during his loan spell.
The Spanish manager said: “It is not changing. I told you yesterday it is not changing his situation.
“Today, he played and (it is) fantastic how he helped us, but it’s not changing our idea with him.”
Visit Bang Premier (main website)
