Unai Emery claims there are seven English sides ahead of Aston Villa in the race for honours this season.
The former Arsenal boss steered Villa into the Champions League courtesy of a top-four Premier League finish last season but claims his side are ‘not contenders’ to repeat the feat in this campaign – going as far as to say they are eighth on the list of contenders.
Unai Emery joined the media this afternoon ahead of tomorrow’s clash against West Ham.
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He told a press conference ahead of Villa’s opening game away at West Ham on Saturday (5.30pm kick-off): “The expectations for this year are different because we are going to play in the Champions League.
“This is fantastic for us, it’s a new motivation and the best level in the football world.”
Seemingly to temper expectations among the Villa Park faithful, Emery vowed: “We are going to try and be competitive and try to do our way. The expectation for us in the Premier League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup is the same.
“We’re not contenders to be in the top four. We’re not starting being contenders to be in the top five. There are seven teams who are contenders more than us.”
Emery named Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Manchester United, Chelsea and Newcastle as sides who should be considered more likely contenders than Villa.
“We achieved last year a top four position and we have to be demanding, intelligent, hard-working,” he added.
“Other teams are contenders more than us to be in the top four, five, six and seven, and we have to try to beat them.
“They have more capacity than us and we are trying to develop in every direction we can do.
“We are trying to reduce the distance to those teams, and we are doing it, but there are still seven teams with more capacity than us at the beginning of the season.”
Emery said maintaining the spirit which got Villa into the Champions League was the key to ‘trying to be in with the top seven,’ though he will have to balance that with trying to progress from the group stage in Europe.
“I don’t want to play in the Champions League getting there and not being competitive. I have experiences in different European competitions and we competed very well three years ago with Villarreal, getting to the semi-finals. It was fantastic, but now my new challenge is to do something similar with Aston Villa.
“I don’t know about getting to quarter or semi-finals, but we have to be competitive facing the best teams in the world.
“The players have to be very demanding. We have changed some players in the squad, trying to get balance and developing in the direction we want to move forward in, getting better every year.”
