Aston Villa manager Unai Emery was delighted but not completely satisfied with his side’s performance in their narrow 2-1 Europe League win over Swiss club Young Boys.
Aston Villa struck twice before the break courtesy of Donyell Malen. They racked up 2.2 expected goals (xG) from 19 attempts. eight of them on target, but despite their dominance, they were unable to add to their two goals.
Young Boys grew back into the contest as the game wore on, scoring a late 90th-minute consolation through Joel Monteira and Emery admitted afterwards that Villa needed to maintain their concentration right until the final whistle.
“We had a bad moment in this competition, losing against Go Ahead Eagles,” Emery told VillaTV.
“But, in this competition, if you’re not respecting each team, not respecting this competition, then you can get, in some moments, a bad result.
“After it, we are really focusing in this competition seriously and respecting every team.
“We have won against one team better than the last match; we played better than the last match we played in the Europa League against Maccabi [Tel Aviv].
“And [Thursday] was really a very good match, how we were dominating, getting advantage in the result.”
The win brought Aston Villa’s points tally to twelve from five games, placing them in third place behind Lyon and FC Midtjylland only on goal difference.
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