Unai Emery calls on Aston Villa to put themselves among Champions League favourites
Unai Emery called on Villa to put themselves in the driving seat for the Champions League top eight by beating Club Brugge.
Villa have travelled to Belgium boasting a perfect record of three wins from three matches and Emery believes they require another seven or eight points from their remaining five matches to secure progression straight through the competition’s last-16.
The boss therefore sees tonight’s match against Brugge as a huge opportunity and said: “Tomorrow we have the possibility to get one step ahead in this competition, to be a contender in the top eight. This is a really amazing objective we can achieve and can face tomorrow.
“But if we are not playing with the 100 per cent focus we did in other Champions League matches it is going to be difficult.”
Villa have been the competition’s surprise package so far and can tonight become the first Champions League newcomers to win their opening four matches in the competition without conceding a goal.
But Emery has warned they must be ready to fight against Brugge, who he believes will be as fired-up to beat Villa as his team were before playing Bayern Munich a month ago.
Emery continued: “We’re aware about the possibility to get the fourth victory and 12 points and the expectation to be in the top eight is maybe 16/17 points. They will be there, the best teams in Europe.
“But there will be some surprises and us getting there would be a surprise. We are not contenders to be in the top eight, maybe yes in the next round but not the top eight.
“Maybe other teams have different ways to be favourites ahead of us. We want to be a fighter team, working hard, to be more emotional.”
Matty Cash will miss tonight’s game with the calf injury sustained in Sunday’s 4-1 defeat at Tottenham. Ross Barkley (hamstring) remains out.
