Aston Villa remains on track to possibly be eligible for the Champions League after Saturday's victory against Fulham, but Unai Emery was not particularly happy with the display on its part.
Unai Emery did not leave his players illusions about his expectations after claiming aspects of victory against Fulham were 'unacceptable'. The side of Midlands beat Marco Silva in Villa Park on Saturday with Youri Tielemans who scored the winning strike.
It leaves Villa seventh in the Premier League table and only two points behind the fifth placed Chelsea, a position that will be enough to see the club return to the Champions League.
But Emery does not let Villa rest on their laurels. He has demanded a lot of ruthlessness and concentration about the closure of three games of the campaign.
Asked for a particularly angry reaction to his defense mid-match, the Spaniard answered: “I was in the same way when we finished the first half because we started very well, we dominated and scored a goal, but we stopped a bit.
“We started playing a little more backpasses. Back -passes do for one objective, to try to stop and then progress (is fine), but we did not progress as we needed and how we had planned before.
“Not even doing it, we lost a number of easy balls. We spoke yesterday and this week how important it is to try to play and seriously focus in our game plan, each to feel at ease. But if someone (Konsa) relaxes a little, we are closer to losing.”
Villa is now confronted with three important games during the last weeks of the season, because they want to qualify for the Champions League. They take on colleague -European contenders Bournemouth before they complete their campaign against Spurs and Manchester United.
“We should be very demanding every day and be consistent in our focus with the game plan, they expect and play, always so, so demanding in our process in 90 minutes,” Emery added.
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“We want to be consistent in the Premier League for 38 games. But we have to be very consistent every match for 90 minutes. With the players in the starting XI, with the players in the bank – in the second half today they helped us a lot, the sub -players, how they influenced in 20, 30 minutes.
“It is necessary to have players very focused and demand with the game plan, in their minds. When we lost some balls in the first half, I told them in the dressing room:” I can't accept it! “. I sometimes can't accept how we manage the competition.”
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