Emery previews Man City matchup

Unai Emery looked ahead to Aston Villa’s meeting with Manchester City this weekend, at Friday’s pre-match press conference at Bodymoor Heath.

The Villans look to bounce back from a midweek Europa League defeat to Go Ahead Eagles at Villa Park on Sunday (ko 2pm), while stretching their winning run in the Premier League to four matches.

The Villa boss, celebrating the three-year anniversary of his appointment at the club, met with the national press at his side’s training base to discuss facing Pep Guardiola and his City side, that European defeat in Deventer, and more.

Read the key lines from his pre-match media briefing below.

On facing Pep Guardiola...

“Always it’s very, very difficult to face him.

“Firstly, because he is managing the better team in the world, with the better players in the world, and secondly because he is really, for me, the best coach in the world.

“He is very competitive, tactically, with the ball, how he is building every year. His team is, fantastic, amazing, he is really a genius.

“And then, he is humble. As a person as well, I appreciate him a lot, because he is humble.

“With everything he is achieving, he is keeping humble, and respectful always, with me, very, very respectful, and this is the most important, firstly, as a person, how he is as a person.

“As a person, he is a fantastic guy, and as a professional, as a coach, he is the best.”

On stopping Erling Haaland...

“Firstly, collectively we should try to be very, very focused to stop him.

“We will prepare the game individually as well to try to get duels and stopping him, but getting duels individually maybe could be not enough to stop him.

“We will need some cover with other players, and then tactically we can stop him in different ways, or the goalkeeper saving the last one when he can beat our structure tactically or the duels we can have or even the cover we can use tomorrow.”

On defeat to Go Ahead Eagles...

“It was not a surprise to lose for me and the players because we are having here our experiences playing in Europe and playing away.

“Every year we had one defeat like that. Two years ago, Legia Warsaw, last year, Brugge, and this year, yesterday.

“Of course, still matches to play, and I want to learn. For me, yesterday, everything happened, for us, is learning. Learning, and as well reminding ourselves the experiences we had in some similar circumstances.

“Why? Because of course we were favourites and of course we dominated and of course we had more chances, but even like that, you can lose.

“In Europa League we are being consistent, even yesterday, losing, we are being consistent.

“We played three matches and we got six points, and our objective is to be in the top 24 at the beginning and course if we can, top eight, and to avoid one round.

“I am learning a lot in different issues collectively, tactically and individually as well, we got a lot of information.

“We have broken our good form or our good result the last matches, but now focusing and of course parking Europa League for the next match and focusing for the next match in Europa League, and now focusing Premier League, Manchester City on Sunday.”

On Harvey Elliott...

“I am being very, very demanding myself to choose in each match the player to start and the players in the bench and the subs players, and firstly is always trying to get the best performance collectively, through individual players.

“Harvey is a 10 number in our structure, in our shape, and he plays some matches and there is still adaptation to add himself individually in our structure, the task we have.

“Of course, he is training well, and his commitment is being very well as well, but his performance was not enough (up to this point).

“At the same time, we have other players who can play as 10 number and they are performing well, and I have different players.

“This is the main reason he is not playing the last matches minutes, but he has to continue working like he is doing in the training session and of course getting his confidence in the performance we need through him.”

Watch Emery's pre-match press conference in full below...