Aston Villa boss Unai Emery wants to make Champions League football a regular occurance at Villa Park.
Villa are competing in Europe’s elite competition for the first time in 41 years this season and have won their first two games, winning 3-0 away at Young Boys before a famous 1-0 victory over Bayern Munich.
The West Midlands club continue to remarkably rise with Emery in charge, having taken them from a relegation battle to the Champions League as the Basque coach approaches just two years at the helm.
Reflecting on his time at the club ahead of hosting Bologna Tuesday night, Emery said: “I don’t want to waste my time here. You can waste your time here but we don’t want to waste time here.
“We want to achieve the objectives and one of them is to play in the Champions League. It is not about playing there only because of some circumstances – I want us to stay there for a long time.
“You have to be resilient. We want to be strong in the idea in our mind and create a strong mentality to always break barriers.
“My objective here individually is to keep the same level now being in the Champions League and to add to it by being a contender for a trophy.”
On building something special: “Of course, this is the message. That’s the message I am sending to the players. This is the way we love football, we love our work and we want to be successful, we want to achieve. One of them is to play Champions League but now not only to play, I… pic.twitter.com/jfVqCvVKBA
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) October 21, 2024
Alongside their impressive return to the Champions League, Villa are enjoying their best start to a Premier League season after eight games as they sit fourth with 17 points.
And Emery is pleased with how the Villans have coped with the added workload that a Champions League campaign can bring.
He added: “The mentality is to keep the same level as last year in the Premier League and same level we can have in Champions League.
“Champions League is more demanding than the Conference League and I am very proud of the work we are doing.
“The most important thing for us is how we are increasing our demands and facing more demands each year.
“The challenge is to get better everyday. We need to keep the same level we have now and keep it for a long time. It is difficult to do this when achieving objectives at a high level. We are working hard to keep this.”
Unai Emery: “We believe we can compete. I don’t know how far we are going to get but in this moment, we are here in a good position in Champions League and Premier League.” pic.twitter.com/Yl4S3Sb5HR
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) October 21, 2024
Villa are flying high in sixth in the newly-formatted league phase of the Champions League and will hope to strengthen their grip on a top-eight position with victory on Tuesday night.
Bologna, in contrast, have picked up just a point from their two outings after drawing 0-0 with Shakhtar Donetsk before losing 2-0 at Liverpool earlier this month.
“They played a fantastic match against Liverpool and deserved more against them. They have been competing in the same way”, Emery said of their opponents.
“Because they only have one point [in Champions League] it is difficult for us because they want points like we need points.
“We are respecting them a lot, but trying to play tomorrow in the same way we have.”
