‘Not good enough’ - Unai Emery admits controversial Aston Villa gamble amid Man City mentality shift

Unai Emery has admitted he gambled and failed with his approach in the final 15 minutes of the 2-1 defeat to Manchester City on Tuesday.

Aston Villa conceded a gut-wrenching 94th-minute goal at the Etihad Stadium as Matheus Nunes converted from a genius outside-of-the-boot Jeremy Doku cross. The Cityzens were devastatingly clinical on their final counter-attack of the game, and Villa perhaps paid the price for their naïvety.

Emery decided 1-1 wasn’t sufficient enough and he made two attacking substitutions with around a quarter of an hour to play, bringing on Marco Asensio and Ollie Watkins for Amadou Onana and Marcus Rashford. The desired impact never came, however, as City were the team to find the pivotal winner.

To make matters worse, Axel Disasi, another one of Emery’s subs, was skinned by Doku in the lead-up to the goal. Villa certainly hadn’t been at their best on the night but they worked hard to stay at 1-1 and it felt like all their efforts were in vain when Nunes found the net.

“When the draw was going to be a good point for us, I pushed the players to get one opportunity to win the match,” Emery admitted during his press conference.

“In the last 15 minutes we tried to win the match. In case we got one point, it wouldn’t have been enough. We had some corners and opportunities to get into their box, but it was not enough.”

Emery eager to develop elite mentality

The next step, Emery feels, is to get Villa consistently on a level playing field with the elite competition rather than feeling as if they’re punching above their weight. That’s been the case for much of this season, with the Villans able to compete with Paris Saint-Germain in the quarter-finals of the Champions League and many of the big guns in the Premier League.

It’s difficult to maintain such a standing throughout an entire season, but that’s what Emery is beginning to demand now that Villa are ready for such aspirations. Fighting for a Champions League spot can become a regular occurrence for the club if they take the right steps, Emery feels.

One of those steps was trying to prove a point at the Etihad, aiming to turn one point into three to really throw the cat amongst the pigeons in the race for Europe. That’s a controversial approach given how tricky it is to draw at City, let alone win, but it’s a telling sign of what Emery wants to achieve.

“We want to try to improve our mentality and try to compete with Manchester City,” Emery added. “We wanted to win. We always have to try to build our mentality in this direction.

“It would have been a good point, but not enough because three points is the best option. At the beginning, I wouldn’t have been happy with one point. We are accepting that Man City are also fighting for the positions in the Champions League. We were competing trying to win.”