- Aston Villa travel to Craven Cottage to take on Fulham on Saturday
- Unai Emery spoke to the media at Bodymoor Heath ahead of the fixture
Aston Villa enter matchday 34 needing just two more wins to secure Champions League football. Fulham await them at Craven Cottage, who have their own battle of potentially qualifying for a European competition. Unai Emery spoke to the media ahead of what he labels as a “huge challenge.”
It is a fixture that has favoured the Villans in the past, with a perfect record under Emery when facing the Cottagers.
Marco Silva’s side has been struggling recently, winning only one of their last five league games that also include the only goals they have scored since the beginning of March.
For Villa, it looks like a much prettier picture. They are unbeaten in their last six, having won five and drawn the other. Ollie Watkins is also in superb form with six goals in his last five appearances, and the Englishman is making a case to be included in Thomas Tuchel’s side for the World Cup, after being left out of the most recent squad.
Unai Emery on the challenge of facing Fulham
In his pre-match press conference, Emery discussed the challenges of winning away from home.
“When you’re achieving good results, you’re feeling comfortable and confident. Each match is a challenge to show how we are, how we can face each match, how we can show our momentum.
“Our momentum we can analyse through our results in the Premier League. In the last three games we played, West Ham, Sunderland and Forest. The challenge we can have tomorrow is thinking how we are performing in the Premier League in away matches.
“The last away match we won in Premier League was in Newcastle, a long time ago. That shows how difficult it is to achieve the objective we have in each match: three points, one point or no points.
“Tomorrow is going to be very difficult because it’s always difficult away and Fulham have a very good coach, very good players, and they are performing so consistently during the years.”
“The Premier League is the priority”
Despite some supporters potentially feeling that the Spaniard could make some changes with one eye on their Europa League semi-final with Nottingham Forest, Emery insisted that is not the case.
“We are facing each match. We are preparing for each match. We are focusing on each match. The Premier League is the priority.
“We are in the semi-final of the Europa League and we can lose. If we are losing, we can only get our objective through the league. We can even play the final and we can lose the final, and we can only achieve our objective for next season through the league.
“The priority is how we are going to finish in day 38. We are so excited for the Europa League, but I know how difficult it is to win in Europa League. We have 25 possibilities to win the Europa League because there are four teams and each team has 25% possibility to win, no more.”
Balancing both the league and Europe has been difficult this season, with the injuries Villa has suffered. However, they have used their European matches to help turn around their league form, which has put them in the best position to achieve both of their objectives – qualify for the Champions League, and win a piece of silverware.
Saturday’s match is about more than three points; it is the penultimate step in a historic campaign. By focusing on the here and now at Craven Cottage, Emery is ensuring that his squad doesn’t let a golden opportunity for Europe’s elite competition slip through their fingers in the final stretch.
