Emery on Bournemouth loss

Unai Emery says Aston Villa will keep moving forward into upcoming challenges following their Carabao Cup defeat to Bournemouth.

Villa had their chances during a competitive clash on the south coast but ultimately exited at the fourth-round stage.  

As ever, Emery was thankful to the travelling support as he assessed the result, while the club’s manager also highlighted big games on the horizon for his side as they look to progress on multiple fronts.

“We are disappointed,” he said.

“Since I arrived at Aston Villa we’ve played here four times, and we have won, we have drawn, and today we lost, but we played the same match like we played before.

“Here, you must be compact, you must avoid the chances they were creating. We needed the ‘keeper, we needed the defence being compact, like we are building this team.

“And then when we were attacking, because we were creating chances even more than other times we were playing here, and we weren’t clinical today.

“Move on, try to analyse and get positive things: Tyler playing, Marco Bizot playing, Goretzka playing, Garnacho as well having 30 minutes to play, getting confidence and understanding our structure, understanding our level and the difficulties in the Premier League with teams like Bournemouth.

“I can’t tell them anything because the players tried and we pushed. We were struggling in the first minutes because they are always so intense. In the second half they started so, so intensely – we knew it and we were trying to avoid it.

“They were scoring and we were creating chances after it but not scoring. We are out of this competition, but we have a lot of challenges in front of us.

“We have Fulham on Saturday, and Premier League is the priority. Then we have the Champions League and FA Cup. The Carabao Cup was a competition for a trophy and that we were excited and motivated to get something.

“Now we’re out and we say thank you to the supporters who were here with us, helping us, travelling from Birmingham to be with us. Thank you, and now we keep going forward.”