Unai Emery offers reason for Aston Villa slump
Unai Emery believes no longer being a “surprise package” is making it tougher for Villa this season after expressing confidence his team can arrest their alarming slide.
Sunday’s 3-0 defeat at Chelsea extended Villa’s winless run to eight matches and they have fallen into the bottom half of the Premier League table after taking just two points from their last five games.
The run is comfortably their worst since Emery took charge two years ago and transformed a team which was struggling against relegation into one which last season qualified for the Champions League.
But he reckons the fact opponents are now paying them more respect, coupled with the improvement of rivals like Chelsea, makes repeating that achievement much harder.He said: “This year has been different because we are not a surprise like last year.
“They (Chelsea) don’t have doubt like last year. We were being consistent last year with the same idea and style with the same players.
“This year a lot of teams are trying to face us thinking we are an opponent to be in the top seven.
“Chelsea deserved to win but we have to keep calm. We lost here one opportunity because the gap before the game was three points and now we are six points behind them. We are thinking about our next match on Wednesday and trying to cut this spell of bad results.”
Villa host Brentford on Wednesday before welcoming Southampton in matches Emery believes present the opportunity to bounce back.
“I am confident we can recover again our good form,” he said. “The players are disappointed with the result but they understand how we can manage again this moment.”
Villa have kept just one clean sheet in their last 18 Premier League matches dating back to April and saw their defence breached inside seven minutes at Stamford Bridge when Nicolas Jackson volleyed home a cross.
Enzo Fernandez doubled the lead before the break with Cole Palmer then scoring a superb effort to complete the scoring. Ollie Watkins saw two chances saved by Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sanchez, who also denied John McGinn as Villa failed to score for the fourth time in 13 league matches this season.
Emery was quick to direct praise toward the hosts who look a much improved team under Enzo Maresca.
He said: “Chelsea today showed that this year is different. They are feeling stronger. They have power and capacity, it is higher. We have to try to keep balance and we had our chances to score. Maybe this could have changed something and they deserved to win.
“They showed their power for this year. I know this year is going to be more difficult because some teams are feeling stronger like Chelsea today.
“We are going to recover our confidence, everything we are doing and understand that this year is more difficult.
“We are in our way building the team and we build last year and we got last year so fast some objectives we had when we arrived here.
“We need points to be thinking the top eight or if we want to get the top. We have to come back with good results.”
