Unai Emery takes his Aston Villa team to Wembley on Saturday as they look to secure a place in the FA Cup final.
Standing in their way is a Crystal Palace side who've taken a win and a draw from the sides' two Premier League meetings this season, while also besting Villa in the League Cup.
Manager Emery offered his thoughts on facing the Eagles, handling the occasion at the national stadium, trying to contend for a trophy and team selection.
Here's what he had to say at his pre-match press conference...
On contesting an FA Cup semi-final…
“It’s a good opportunity for us to be in this semi-final and to enjoy this moment with our supporters, to travel to London with them and to play a match.
“My expectation is that it will be a very difficult match because they’re motivated and in a good moment. They played very well in the last match against Arsenal and it’s giving us information about how they are.
“Other information we can have is how they performed against us this year and even in the last match last year when we played there. I have massive respect for the coach, massive respect for Crystal Palace and their players, and massive respect for the semi-final.
“Every semi-final we’re facing is always being difficult. Why? Because every team is there because they deserve it. And then it’s about how we are. We are motivated like them, we’re in a good moment like them and we want to try and play this match getting our best performances individually and collectively.”
On contending for a trophy…
“As a coach, my challenge when I arrived here was to get some trophies during the way. This is one opportunity because we’re in a semi-final, but there is still a lot of work to do.
“When you’re getting experiences and getting some trophies during those experiences, the most important thing I enjoyed and learned was during the way, not the end. How we are doing this year in the FA Cup is really amazing.
“This is the process I want to enjoy. I want to enjoy the semi-final and everything we are going to do, from the way we are doing, travelling to London, being together, preparing the match, having some meetings, the atmosphere tomorrow in Wembley. At the end, the objective is to win, but the process is the really important thing.”
On Crystal Palace and manager Oliver Glasner…
“We always respect them. They’ve performed fantastically against us. We will try to identify our capacity to dominate the match, to impose our positioning, our combination with the players, and our individual duels.
“They’re a team playing fantastic football, and I respect this coach because he’s a winning coach. He won the Europa League and his experiences in England with Crystal Palace are being really fantastic.
“He’s getting the semi-final and he’s performing very well. Sometimes he’s not achieving the results to be better in the league, but they are performing very well. Against us, they showed it.
“I respect them a lot.”
On Villa’s objectives for the remainder of the season…
“When you start the season, you are trying to set some objectives for the end of the season through four competitions – Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup.
“We are still in two competitions – Premier League because it’s 38 matches and the FA Cup. We finished the Champions League. We’re focusing on each match in each competition, trying to get our best.
“To be in Europe is one clear objective we have. The first way to get Europe is through the Premier League, but getting the trophy in the FA Cup you can play in the Europa League. It’s the second objective we can have in the competition.
“Now, we can’t choose only one competition, we are choosing both competitions strongly because we have two ways for our objective.”
On team selection…
“Rotation is not because you’re playing one match after, it’s because you’re playing one match before, because some players are tired or maybe got injured.
“We played a really hard match on Tuesday and did very good work there, but after this match the first thing was about how the players are for the selection of the starting XI.
“Tomorrow is a match that we will need the starting XI and players on the bench to be ready to play.
“We’re ready for 90 minutes, extra-time and a penalty shootout. We’re ready to play a match with every player that is available for tomorrow.”
