Unai Emery previews Barcelona encounter

Unai Emery faced the media on Monday night to preview Aston Villa’s UEFA Champions League clash against Barcelona.

The Villa manager, alongside captain John McGinn, travelled straight to the Camp Nou for the club’s press conference upon touching down from Birmingham.

During his pre-match briefing, Emery discussed the test that awaits the Villans on Matchday 4 - which will be the first meeting between the two sides since our Super Cup success over two legs in January 1983.

Here are the key lines from Unai’s press conference. 

On his plan for facing Barcelona…

“Barcelona is a favourite for winning this competition, I could choose five teams who might be vying for this title, one of them is Barcelona.

“Now, the way this league stage goes to end up finishing among the first eight, this is a new competition, in this regard, and we need to avoid any kind of surprise.

“So logically, there will be times during the season when you build, when you walk your own path but, just to be clear, the second part of the season is when things will be decided.

“But if you make some mistakes along the way, you might not get there.

“So, that's when the favourite teams are considering this. Barcelona, right now, have six points, we have nine. They lost the game against PSG. From a tactical point of view, playing against PSG is very demanding.

“After all, this was a clash between two favourites, maybe two of the favourites to win this competition. But, in the end, PSG won the game at home with the advantage that playing at home can have.

“Against Real Madrid (in La Liga), I would say that was a different match. It was a different game. Mere tactical approach, Real Madrid was different to that of PSG, and it was a home game as well.

“So, we need to find our own personality and play with our own style, with our own qualities and skills. Try to make the most of our individual talent, you need to try to make the most of our qualities.

“In turn, Barcelona will be demanding of us. We need to adapt and we need to face tomorrow’s game in that way. But it will be different to the ones against PSG and Real Madrid. We need to play our own game.”

On using his previous experiences against Barça…

“Usually, in my experiences, they were giving me a lot of information to learn, to get better, to try and identify for the next matches I am facing.

“With the players, we are speaking about our experiences together.

“We have our experiences in Europe – in the Champions League two years ago, this year as well how we are playing, we’ve played three matches and we’ve won three matches. And we’ve done our work fantastic.

“Tomorrow we are facing one of the favourite teams to win this competition.

“So, the challenge is huge tomorrow, maybe for this Champions League, it is the most difficult match we’re going to face against Barcelona here.

“But we are confident how we are building the team, how we are competing, getting our experiences, facing teams like Barcelona, in the Premier League and in the Champions League. Even in the Europa League, you can play matches as well against teams like Barcelona.

“So, how we are progressing, understanding our way, setting our demands, competing at the level we are, to keep this level – this is the challenge we have.

“And tomorrow, the experiences we’re going to use collectively are our own experiences.

“And try to get another experience here. How the players are going to feel on the field, how we are going to feel collectively comfortable, more or less, confident, more or less, with our capacity to respond in the demands. Collectively and individually.

“It’s a really exciting match we’ll play tomorrow.”

On Barcelona and Aston Villa…

“Barcelona is always a favourite in a competition like this.

“We also have history, in 1982 we won the Champions League, the European Cup in that day, and right now we’re enjoying reminiscing with our fans playing in this competition again. Trying to repeat our success.

“Obviously Barcelona are favourites because of the present and because of what they've done over the last 10 years.

“Now they need to confirm their favourite role, playing at their very best. And if they play at their best, they are indeed capable of beating any team.”

Emery added: “We are a team who are trying to find our own path, a consistent path in Europe, in the Champions League.

“We've been together for four years. This is the second year playing in the Champions League. We were able to reach the quarter-finals against PSG two years ago.

“We are constantly seeking new challenges and we want to respond in games against Barcelona tomorrow, for instance, seeing how far we are from them.

“But they are favourites, we understand that. And, after that, we’ll make our own way.

“But for Barcelona, whenever they are not winning, will always be a disappointment for them, especially for them, because they are favourites to win the league, La Liga or the Champions League together with four other teams.”

On Johan Manzambi…

“Manzambi is a young talent, how he is progressing, how he is adapting to us is really very good.

“He has qualities, skills, mentality and his progression with the team is going well.

“He was injured and now he is getting better at understanding how we want to play.

“He can play in different positions in the attacking third, now how he is playing, how he is showing his qualities is something we are building.

“Of course, there’s still work to do to get more.”