Aston Villa boss Unai Emery cannot stand questions about the Premier League title race and the fight for Champions League football.placeholder image
Aston Villa boss Unai Emery cannot stand questions about the Premier League title race and the fight for Champions League football. | AFP via Getty Images
What Unai Emery said about Aston Villa’s Champions League chances after the win over Brighton.
Unai Emery remains insistent that Aston Villa must focus solely on themselves and ignore outside noise throughout the Premier League run-in.
Villa, currently third in the Premier League and on 50 points from 26 matches following Wednesday’s 1-0 win over Brighton & Hove Albion, have been talked up as title candidates far and wide. If it’s not the title, then the Villans have been tipped as heavy favourites to finish in the top five and qualify for next season’s UEFA Champions League.
As much as Emery is highly ambitious and a perfectionist in all senses of the word, the head coach always refuses to publicly set targets, other than general qualification for Europe. Emery has stood his ground, consistently denying claims that Villa are in the title race. That is, at least, “until day 34”, when the Spaniard may dare to dream if Villa are still in the upper echelons.
Emery makes important demand to Villa players
After the underwhelming win over Brighton, Emery was asked whether the result was all the more important after Manchester United and Chelsea - currently fourth and fifth - dropped points. As we’ve grown to expect, Emery was having absolutely none of it.
“No way, no way,” Emery said. “I don’t want to speak about other teams. We focus on ourselves, in our way, our points and how we build the team. We are trying to focus on each match.
“Other teams will win and lose. If we lose then we are out, but if we win then we keep a good way. We focus on each competition and each match. After 10 days we play Leeds United, and now we focus on the FA Cup.”
Villa cannot get carried away
It may seem to some that Emery is being a bit of a killjoy, but the head coach is absolutely right to talk down his team’s chances. Villa have outperformed expectations so far this season and they have often won games against the odds, helping them get to where they are in the table.
Now, that’s not us saying Villa don’t deserve to be in third. They absolutely do, otherwise they wouldn’t be there. But there needs to be some realism, and challenging for the title isn’t a fair expectation at this stage. Every Villa fan knows that, it’s just a shame the wider media can’t seem to grasp it.
Emery is doing a sublime job with the cards he has been dealt, especially recently with all the injuries mounting up in midfield. Villa have lowest transfer spend in the Premier League throughout 2025/26 and pivotal players Boubacar Kamara, Youri Tielemans and John McGinn are all sidelined for the long term.
It’s not going to be easy to achieve the goal of a top-five finish. But Emery is confident his side can get there – if they can just focus on that one game at a time.
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