Unai Emery responds to shock Aston Villa accusation as Morgan Rogers wades in
Aston Villa boss Unai Emery responded to a confrontational question after the 3-1 defeat at PSG.
Unai Emery has responded to a claim that he instructed Aston Villa to give up on attacking when 2-1 down at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday night.
The Villans were beaten 3-1 by Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League quarter-final first leg as PSG fought back to claim a two-goal aggregate after Morgan Rogers’ surprise opener. The Parisiens’ power and quality proved too overbearing as Desire Doue, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Nuno Mendes scored a trio of world-class finishes in the French capital.
“The last goal is disappointing for us because it was the last minute. But it does not change our mind or belief, we have to win the next match,” Emery told the media in reflection.
“We need to win and today, everything that happened on the field was ok. They’re favourite, they have good ball possession, very intense players in the middle and we played our match trying to do our best. We will try to analyse what we can do next week. The result either way could happen.”
Emery accused of surrender
One question in the press conference rather took Emery aback as a journalist accused the Spaniard of throwing in the towel in a bid to keep the score down. “This is football. It’s a team that’s very good and very fast,” a surprised Emery responded, with a telling shrug.
“After 2-1 I wanted to keep pushing to win the match, either we win now or 90 more coming up, I didn’t want this game to get out of hand. I was adjusting on the counter attacks, logically we played knowing there’s 90 minutes remaining.
“We’re going to push to have more moments and we know it’s a team that’s built to win at very high level. We’re very happy to compete at this level, facing teams collectively, we’re not the best version of our team. Collectively and individually I’ll make sure we’re better. We’re here to compete and this is not changing.”
Morgan Rogers shows defiance
Villa’s scorer in Paris and so often the bright spark in matches no matter the result, Rogers remains confident he and his team can still go on and beat PSG to reach the last four. It certainly won’t be easy to beat the tournament favourites by two goals – and that’s just to reach extra time – but the hope is still there, at least.
“There’s loads of belief in the changing room,” Rogers said. “We have nothing to lose, nobody thought we’d win the tie in the first place. Why not just go for it? We’ve definitely got the quality to turn things around. It’s not done yet.”
Whatever happens next week, Villa Park is bound to stand up proud as they welcome their heroes for what is likely to be the end of their remarkable Champions League journey. Just reaching the competition was astounding enough, but to get to the last eight – and in a convincing fashion – was beyond everyone’s wildest dreams.
Villa are back to the big time and they’re not giving up their high ground just yet.
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