Aston Villa boss Unai Emery wants his side “History writes” by producing an epic comeback against Paris Saint-Germain to reach the semi-final of the Champions League, but he will not use his own European knockout family tree to motivate them.
Villa has a mountain for climbing in the quarterfinals second stage on Tuesday in Villa Park while trying 3-1 from the first game of last Wednesday in France. However, returning a shortage with two goals is not an impossible task for teams that do this 14 times.
Emery's side looked like returning to the home floor with only a shortage of one goal, but the efforts of Nuno Mendes in the Parc des Princes proved harmful.
The chances are against Villa in their debut season in the Champions League, but Emery knows everything about European comebacks, famous as the PSG manager when they spread a 4-0 first-leg leading to lose to Barcelona in 2017.
And he wants his side to create their own story.
“I have experiences, positive and negative – in two ways,” Emery said about his comeback history.
“Now we have something else – we want to write history with Aston Villa here.
“My experiences are different. Sometimes we lost away and then won at home, sometimes we lost at home and we won away. Sometimes win more than losses, but I also have some negative experiences.
“I am not going to remind the players of those experiences, every word with the players to send messages is how we do it in this way, how we get our own experiences here.
“With the combination we have: mentally, individual and tactical, so demanding in our process to get opportunities and believe, we can beat PSG.”
Asked if the third goal that PSG scored in the first stage gave his team too much to do, Emery said: “2-1 and 3-1 changes something. A lot? No. No.
“Why? Because we have to win at 2-1 and we have to win at 3-1. Now we have to win with another goal in our expectation.
“Tactically we try to do our best with our experiences, individual and collective idea to face them.
“We have to believe and show our wishes, but also respect them in the same way as we did there.
“But at the same time, Villa Park such as our house and our fort are trying to use it. We have often felt it, we want to share a motivated game to play.”
Emery: Home Support can help us via USG
Emery also believes that Villa's home support will be crucial if they have to find a way back in the draw against PSG.
“PSG has a lot of experience playing in road races,” he said. “They play in France and Europe and we have that too.
“But we will make contact with our supporters and transferring the energy, more or less, 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.”
“If anyone can turn it around, we're”
Morgan Rogers, who placed Villa 1-0 in Paris last week, says his side believes that they can produce the comeback.
“There is a huge belief in the dressing room,” said Rogers. “I know that most people have written off us before this draw. But in the first stage we gave a good report of ourselves.
“Of course there are things that we had to improve, but we know it [PSG] now. There is a task in the hands.
“Under the lights at home in the quarterfinals of this competition, there are not many better places to be.
“Everyone is going to turn around, it will be us. It's up to us and we are enthusiastic about that challenge.
“It will be difficult and I am not saying that we are going to do it, but we will certainly give it a chance and go outside to win.”
'Watkins feels fantastic'
There was a big conversation point from Emery's press conference that might start at the front for Villa.
Ollie Watkins has admitted that he is not happy on the Aston Villa Bank, with the striker of England, who has managed a knee problem and only starts four of Villa's last five games as a replacement.
His sparkling 25-minute cameee against Southampton in the weekend, however, may have persuaded the boss to choose him for the Make-Or-Break Champions League Second Leg against PSG.
“He showed us that he feels fantastic,” said Emery. “He scores goals, he played really good performance for 30 minutes [against Southampton].
“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.”
Marcus Rashford started with Villa's last two games in the No. 9 position and Emery hinted that he wants to link him with Watkins in the future.
He added: “The next step – if I have time – is to play them together.
“We did it with Rashford that played the left, but now we choose more by playing both as strikers. That is the next step. I want to practice, I want to test, but not now, with enough time.”
Rashford or Watkins – Who should start Villa?
Danyal Khan from Sky Sports News on the training ground of Aston Villa:
“After hearing Morgan Rogers and Unai Emery in their news conferences, I would describe them as business.
“Both radiated absolute convictions that Villa can destroy the shortage with two goals – Rogers mainly told me that he feels that people had written off his side even before a ball was kicked in Paris.
“But now they have played them and have that experience – they are ready to go to them with everything they have in Villa Park.
“An interesting aspect of Emery's chat was how he really sees Marcus Rashford as a no. 9 in this villa side – so that brings an important selectionilemma: who starts?
“Ollie Watkins after his fantastic goal in Southampton at the weekend or will Rashford continue? He has previously for winners and comebacks against PSG …”
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