Unai Emery has called on its Aston Villa team to stay positive and to move forward after a crushing late defeat against Manchester City has shared their Champions League qualification qualification.
Matheus Nunes hit a 2-1 victory in the Etihad Stadium in a stop time, after Bernardo Silva had opened the score early.
Marcus Rashford made the same place in the first half and continued his fine shape for Villa, but it was not enough to get a result.
In the result, Villa remains in seventh place, two points of the top five with four more games and four drifts of the city in third place.
After the game, Sky Sports appealed, Emery insisted that his players should not think about the result.
“We can't waste time, we lost in the last minute of this match, but we took good with us. We were close to drawing,” he said.
“We also tried to win the competition with our substitutes, but they do the same and they score.
“They dominated more than 90 minutes, but we played a good competitive game.”
Unai Emery reflects on tonight's defeat. pic.twitter.com/qngk2ixxfn
– Aston Villa (@AVFCofficial) April 22, 2025
While acknowledging that City prevailed, Emery emphasized the importance of taking positives.
“I take a lot of positive things and is now a time to be positive. I'm going to analyze the match and try to get a lot of information out of it,” he added.
“We can't waste time now, we have to continue.
“We want to try to maintain the level that we reach and try to demand in our way, so that we can build ourselves, to be stronger in everything.
“Tomorrow we will rest. Thursday and Friday we will be positive and work hard to prepare for the match against Crystal Palace.”
Villa will now focus their focus on the FA Cup semi-final against Palace on Saturday, before returning the following weekend to Premier League promotion to Fulham.