Aston Villa manager Unai Emery highlighted his next objective after the club’s 2-1 Premier League win over Manchester City at Villa Park on Saturday.
Man City went into the game with a 100 percent league record with seven straight victories, but they came second-best against the Villans on the road.
Nicolas Jackson capitalised on a defensive error from Marc Guehi to score early on. The Cityzens equalised through Erling Haaland shortly after the break.
However, Jackson managed to put the hosts ahead once more. Poor goalkeeping from Gianluigi Donnarumma gifted the striker a 60th-minute winner.
After the 2-1 win at Villa Park, Emery said that his club are progressing in the right direction after another poor start to the top-flight campaign.
While Villa have been superb in the Champions League (3/3 wins), Emery added that they have underperformed in the league after eight matches played.
The Spanish tactician feels the Villans’ objective should be to compete with Arsenal and Man City.
He told TNT Sports (as quoted by BBC Sport): “We are progressing, but we are under our expectation from the beginning of the season because we started so poorly.
“Now we are progressing. We analysed the match against Forest, and our performance was so bad.
“We improved a lot of things against Brentford at home, we were better, but not enough.
“Today, everything we were working to improve to set our standards high, today was a step forward. Champions League, we are performing fantastic.
“In the league we are progressing but still under our expectations.
“The objective is to compete with these teams – City and Arsenal.”
Villa made a dreadful start to the top-flight season with just one point in the first four games. They have since picked up 10 points from their subsequent four matches.
The Midlands outfit were hampered by the high-profile exits of several key players this summer, including Morgan Rogers, Ezri Konsa, Ollie Watkins and Youri Tielemans.
There was an evident lack of cohesion and chemistry within the starting XI, but Emery has managed to turn around their league fortunes to quickly climb up the standings.
Still, Villa remain far off from potentially challenging Arsenal or Man City for the title. After a poor start, they are already playing catch-up, trailing both teams by 10 points.
Stats from Transfermarkt.com