Unai Emery exclusive: Aston Villa aiming to use added motivation to rectify mistakes against Man Utd as title dream bubbles away | Football News
This weekend, Aston Villa will seek revenge against Manchester United as Unai Emery’s team strives to maintain a competitive edge over Arsenal and Manchester City in the title race.
Two hundred and ten days after a controversial defeat at Old Trafford on the last day of the 2024/25 campaign, which saw Unai Emery’s squad miss out on Champions League football as a result of a 2-0 loss, Villa met Manchester United once again—but with more than a spot among Europe’s elites now in their line of sight.
Villa is poised to challenge Man City and Arsenal in the title race, and the chance to correct the mistakes from their previous encounter with Ruben Amorim’s team offers the latest chance to transform their title-winning aspirations into a more attainable reality.
“Yes, of course,” Emery told Sky Sports when asked if the ending to last season adds extra motivation heading into Sunday’s clash at Villa Park, live on Sky Sports.
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“Manchester United is very difficult. We are so motivated to try to keep our consistency against them because in the three years since I arrived here, we have been performing and competing with them, sometimes beating them, sometimes behind them, but always close.
“Currently, we are ahead of them with a slight advantage, but playing on Sunday for three points is a significant moment for us.” To get this opportunity is strong motivation for us.”
‘We need to be humble to believe we can win the title.’
Up until now, Emery has been reluctant to include his side in the title race, with full focus always on the next fixture.
Opta currently have their odds of securing a first league title since 1981 at just 5.8 percent—but the fact that these conversations are taking place only highlights the remarkable turnaround since Emery arrived in the Second City in October 2022.
At that time, relegation to the Championship appeared more likely than winning a championship.
Unai Emery was appointed as Steven Gerrard’s successor at Aston Villa in October 2022
A difficult Christmas period is approaching, which includes away matches against Chelsea and Arsenal after facing Manchester United, but when the question was posed to the Villa boss about the title race, he remained coy on the topic with a wry smile on his face.
“Of course, I would like to be a favourite to win the Premier League, but we are not favourites,” Emery admitted.
“We are performing very well, we are competing very well and we are now third. This is the reality.
“However, to consider ourselves favourites and truly believe that we can win the Premier League, our objective must be to maintain consistency and be very, very demanding.” And through it, be humble.”
Can Villa outrun xG?
Emery’s reference to consistency arrives amid a debate surrounding the success of his side.
Villa has scored 25 goals against an expected goal value of just 17.11 xG in the top flight. Only Tottenham is currently outperforming that metric by a greater margin.
Morgan Rogers’ winning goal against West Ham, Boubacar Kamara’s thunderbolt at home to defeat Wolverhampton Wanderers, and Emi Buendia’s effort to stun Tottenham on the road are the highlights.
