Aston Villa must have their home advantage count in the second stage of their Champions League quarte final against Paris Saint-Germain in Villa Park, says Unai Emery.
Villa landed 3-1 in the first stage in the Parc des Princes, where Morgan Rogers gave them an unlikely lead in the 35th minute of a quick counterattack.
But Champions League favorites PSG hit strongly with fantastic goals from Desire Doue, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Nuno Mendes.
Villa's defeat Last week was the third time they lost with two goals or more in the first stage of a knockout stage in large European competition.
They did not improve in each of the previous two cases (on aggregated: 1-5 V Royal Antwerp in 1975-76 in the UEFA Cup and 2-6 V Olympiakos in the Conference League).
But Emery was not abandoned before the meeting of Tuesday.
The Spaniard acknowledged the quality of his former club, but it was adamelable that the fans in Villa Park will play a major role.
“PSG has a lot of experience playing matches,” Emery said on Monday.
“They play in France and Europe and we also have experience.
“But we will make contact with our supporters and transferring the energy … If we do that, tactically and individually, good things on the field, the supporters will increase our energy and help us a lot.
“They will always transfer that energy to our players.”
Villa defeated Southampton 3-0 to strengthen their Premier League position at the weekend, and Emery is convinced that his team can test PSG.
He added: “Our expectation is to get a good result of the second stage. Of course, the fact that they have won 3-1 has changed something. But a lot? No. Why? Because we have to win.
“We had to win on 2-1 and now with 3-1. But now we have to win with another goal.
“We played how we wanted that in Paris, but the result was clearly not what we had hoped for. If we win, we can be close by.”
Unai's talk points of the press conference this afternoon #ucl
– Aston Villa (@AVFCofficial) April 14, 2025
Emery also suggested that Villa would adhere to their game plan in the second stage, despite some tactical struggles in Paris last week.
“Our goal is to play with one strong plan in our tactical way tomorrow and try to be consistent and try to understand how the game goes in 90 minutes,” he said.
When asked for striker Ollie Watkins – who only started one of the last five games of Villa – Emery was full of praise and emphasized his good shape despite limited minutes.
“He showed us that he feels fantastic. He scores goals. He played really good performance for 30 minutes [against Southampton]”Said Emery.
“This is the variety that we have with our players. We have to try to use their quality to help the team – whether it is 30 minutes, 10 minutes or five minutes. That is the mentality we need tomorrow.”
This season Watkins will lead the goal lists for Villa with 15 goals in all competitions, although his last goal in the Champions League came in January in their last league match against Celtic.
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