Aston Villa boss Unai Emery was happy with our 3-1 win over Bologna, but remained balanced and focused in his assessment of both the game and tie.
Villa will take a strong advantage into the second leg of our Europa League quarter-final tie next week, after securing a positive result in Italy thanks to goals from Ezri Konsa and a double from Ollie Watkins.
It wasn’t an entirely convincing display, particularly in the first half, as Villa struggled to show enough composure and quality to impose ourselves, and that in turn led to the home side threatening to take the lead on countless occasions.
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However, Konsa broke the deadlock before the break before Watkins doubled our lead shortly after it, and although Bologna hit back late on through the impressive Jonathan Rowe, it was Watkins who struck again in stoppage time to restore our two-goal advantage.
As expected, Emery was less impressed with our first-half performance but saw more positive signs in the second, and he already began to reiterate the need for focus on the task in hand in the reverse fixture at Villa Park next week.
While the display was underwhelming, it’s a fantastic result away from home in Europe in the wider context, and it sets us up well to complete the job next week and continue to progress in the Europa League.
“Happy yes, but we are trying to get balance in everything,” he told TNT Sports, as per BBC Sport. “We played the first leg here and won, and it is a fantastic result. How we did the 90 minutes, I can feel more or less good for some things and not too good for the others. A good result but we still have the second leg to play.
“First half we were a bit shy. We needed to try to do more passes, to get better positions in the attacking third but we were losing the ball easily. We were not conceding a lot but with a few moments we conceded.
“Set pieces are always important but today it was our priority defensively and offensively because we knew before the match that it would be one way to try to get something. In the first half we scored one goal, other chances as well.
“The result was much better than the match we played in the first half, but in the second half it was completely different. We dominated them and controlled the game like we planned to in the first half but we didn’t do, and we were feeling comfortable. We reacted well offensively when they scored.
“In the second leg they are going to try to supress us and my message inside the dressing room is to keep playing the second leg with the same plan, well with the new plan we will have, but keep respecting them.”