Unai Emery acclaimed Aston Villa’s 1-0 triumph against Fulham as a “very important” one for his side.
The squad’s sights are fully set on achieving a top-five finish in the Premier League, and they took a step closer to doing so with three points against the Cottagers.
Youri Tielemans scored the only goal of the game to seal the victory, leaving Emery delighted with the result.
“It’s a fantastic victory,” he said.
“Through the Premier League we are setting our objective because through it we can play in Europe again.
“Fulham are nine points behind us and this victory against this opponent was very important. We did it. We performed fantastically.
“Even when we were winning 1-0, we had chances but didn’t score another. We could have had some problems defensively, but we defended well, we were focused in the 90 minutes and we played a good match.
“We deserved to win and maybe to score one more. I’m very happy because to be in Europe is the objective and our dream is to repeat playing in the Champions League.
“We’re not favourites because other teams are in front of us, but we can continue to dream for it, playing strongly to take again the Champions League.
“The real objective is for us to be in Europe and after today, we are close to being in there.”
While Villa created and missed several opportunities to make it a more comfortable afternoon in B6, they were rarely troubled by their opponents.
A seventh clean sheet of the league season was secured by Emi Martínez, and Emery was pleased with the defensive effort.
He said: “A clean sheet is very important and through it you are closer to winning the match.
“We did it, and it was important for our confidence to feel strong and to feel comfortable dominating defensively when the opponents are not getting chances.
“In one corner or one offensive action they could score one goal and we were always trying to score a second goal close the result of the match for us.”
