Unai Emery wants Aston Villa to 'break barriers' in Champions League

Villa host Bologna on Tuesday aiming to make it three wins from three in the league phase with Emery eager for his team to keep building on their remarkable progress under his leadership.

Thursday will mark two years since the Spaniard was appointed with Villa perched just above the Premier League relegation zone.

They have since gone on to win 40 of the next 71 league matches, with last season’s fourth-placed finish securing the club’s return to Europe’s elite club competition for the first time in more than four decades.

Emery said: “The words I use repeatedly since I arrived here to now is: ‘I don’t want to waste my time’.

“That’s the message for everyone. I don’t want you to waste your time here. We are professionals and we can get our best objectives individually and collectively.

“We want to keep the level we have now, which is the Champions League and add something more like being a contender for a trophy.”

He continued: “This is the way. We love football, we love our work and to be successful. We want to achieve individually and collectively our objectives.

“One of them of course is to play in the Champions League. We are there in this moment but I want to keep it for a long time.

“It is difficult. Maybe sometimes you can have some problems but we have to be resilient in case they are coming. We have to be strong in our idea and in our mind, to create a strong mentality and try to break barriers always.”

Saturday’s win at Fulham moved Villa back into the Premier League’s top four but Emery is also eyeing a deep run in the Champions League. The 52-year-old has a track record for upsetting the odds having taken Villarreal to the semi-finals in 2022, knocking out Bayern Munich and Juventus along the way.

Villa have already beaten Bayern and Young Boys in this season’s competition and Emery said”: We started playing in this competition, showing our capacity to adapt quickly. Adapting because we are getting individually and collectively the performances this competition demands.

“We can believe working like we are doing we can keep it. This is the challenge. We are fourth in the Premier League and have two wins in the Champions League. I want it.

“I want to always be winning more matches than we are losing and trying to work hard to keep it for a long time.

“Tomorrow hopefully we can play, showing we are, we are and we believe we can compete. I don’t know how far we are going to get but at this moment we are here, in this position in the Premier League and Champions League.”