Unai Emery using Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool as inspiration for Aston Villa project
Unai Emery has revealed how Jurgen Klopp’s success at Liverpool helps provide inspiration for his ambitions of turning Villa into a Premier League force.
Emery takes Villa to face Klopp’s Liverpool at Anfield on Saturday with his team looking to take their challenge for European football into the season’s final weekend.
The Spaniard believes his first meeting with Klopp in the 2016 Europa League final while in charge of Sevilla proved a catalyst for the German’s success on Merseyside.
Sevilla’s win meant Liverpool missed out on European football entirely the following season and Emery plans to borrow some of the blueprint which has since delivered Premier League and Champions League glory.
He explained: “When we won the final with Sevilla, they were out of Europe with no Champions League and no Europa.
“They started then the process and the progress they made the last seven years, the level is very high with the coach and the club, the structure and the players.
“It is a way I want to see and want to take away some reference of what they are doing.
“At Aston Villa I want to create and build our own way by being strong and trying to use some things from teams who did it.”
He continued: “Every coach will take inspiration from other teams, other coaches, other work.
“Tactically, when someone is doing something different, we are analysing it and sometimes we are trying to do the same. As coaches, we are trying to copy something, the best circumstances for another team we are trying to copy and add our own personality as well.”
Liverpool have won their last seven matches and Emery knows his team will need a special performance to get a result.
He continued: “Perfection is impossible. But I like to be demanding, with myself and the players, to get excellence and be close to it.
“The only way is to practice a lot. To focus on football, not 100 per cent, because you have to be with your family and enjoy life. But 70 per cent has to be football and focus on football.
“Good rest, good food, good practice, to analyse individually and collectively, to be demanding to work and improve. I am like that. I know if you want to be successful in your work, your life, your passion, you have to be like that.”
