Unai Emery delivers ruthless Aston Villa verdict after Olympiacos horror show

Unai Emery has admitted Aston Villa were second best in every department as Olympiacos ran out shock 4-2 victors at Villa Park on Thursday evening.

It was meant to be a dream night as the Villans took to the field for their first European semi-final since 1982 but an amalgamation of defensive mishaps ruined it. Ayoub El Kaabi was the happiest man in B6 as the Morocco international took advantage of Villa’s mistakes - including a Douglas Luiz handball - to net an impressive hat-trick.

Ollie Watkins and Moussa Diaby both netted clinical goals to level the scoring at 2-2 but Olympiacos again ran riot to regain their two-goal lead, an advantage they’ll clutch gratefully on their return to Athens. Villa, meanwhile, have a huge, Greek mountain to climb and Emery is far from impressed.

“We are frustrated and disappointed, we didn’t play well. We didn’t have control of the game, we were playing so fast,” the head coach said in an irritable tone during the post-match press conference.

“In a lot of moments we needed to stop them and get in the box with more passes. They were attacking and they played the matches so open and the plan was completely different.

“They did well and we didn’t do like we planned. They are favourite and they deserved to win today, we try to come back next week but they are favourite, we will play there trying to show something different,” Emery continued.

It’s unlike the Spaniard to show so much emotion in the press room but the exasperation was understandable as his players ultimately let him down with a frantic display. To be fair to the squad, it’s also uncharacteristic to put in a poor showing, but it was beyond bad.

Emery was asked by Birmingham World if there were any upsides to the evening and he shrugged. “Any positives? Not a lot. Focus on the Premier League, this is the only positive we have now. We are going to let one side the match we play today until next week and now focus on the Premier League,” Emery said.