Unai Emery: European football still a tough challenge for Aston Villa

Saturday’s 2-0 win over Nottingham Forest was their six in seven matches and lifted them up to sixth in the table.

But with seven of their remaining eight matches against teams in the top half, Emery knows there is still plenty of hard work left if they are to stay there.

The Spaniard, who has won 11 of his 17 matches in charge, said: “We are adding a new target. We started trying to escape from the bottom, which we did. We tried to be in the top-10 and now we are there.

“Another target is to go into Europe but to do that we have to face other teams and they are playing very well.

“We are now sixth but it is not real because Brighton have played two matches less than us and Liverpool as well.

“Then of course we are going to think about being ambitious and realistic too. Now we can add a new target for the next match, which is to win. If we do that we can be in with the chance of a European position.”

Second half goals from Bertrand Traore and Ollie Watkins saw Villa earn their third straight home win, against a Forest team who now find themselves in the relegation zone.

The only blot on the day saw Leon Bailey forced off the first half with a hamstring injury.

Emery said: “I’m very happy for our fans because we have won the last three matches at home with a clean sheet and we are going up in the table.

“But we have to take a balance as well with the difficulty we have in front. Today’s match was, as we expected, very difficult.

“At the end the result is the first thing. But we want to create a way, how we can be competitive and be closer to winning every match.

“Today was about being patient, defend well and then try to impose our idea on the pitch. Progressively, we did better.”