Unai Emery says Aston Villa are hungry to prove themselves in the final two months of the season after they were handed a boost in their European qualification push with a 1-0 Premier League win at Brentford.
Ollie Watkins’ 49th-minute strike was the only goal of the match as Villa made it three victories on the spin after beating Club Brugge 3-1 in the Champions League last 16 on Tuesday and knocking Cardiff out of the FA Cup last weekend.
The England international, who swapped Brentford for Villa in 2020, silenced the boos around the Gtech Community Stadium to take his league tally for the season to 13.
Villa, in seventh, now sit two points off fourth-place Manchester City.
“We have to be extremely demanding for the rest of the season, we can add confidence, belief in the way we want to play,” Emery said.
“We will work with the players and try to be ready because we are hungry to play the last two-and-a-half months because we lost something in our way this year and want try to recover, especially in the Premier League.
“We tried to get confidence and belief in our way, it was very important, we spoke in our meetings and how competing here and wishing to win in everything we did. Today we needed to adapt to every demand they pushed us with.”
Emery’s side, who had two goals chalked off in their 4-1 loss at Crystal Palace last month, were denied by VAR again in west London with Watkins being deemed to have ran too early in the build-up to Morgan Rogers’ effort.
Robin Olsen played ahead of the injured Emiliano Martinez in goal, while January signing Marco Asensio was also absent in the capital
“Ollie is always working and taking a big responsibility with his tasks,” Emery added on scorer Watkins’ performance.
“When he’s scoring it’s fantastic and when he’s not he’s helping. He had good chances but his attitude is always fantastic, he worked like we needed and we won.
“They were not feeling good (Martinez and Asensio). They had sore muscle pain, it’s not important because we tested them, they were not available today.
“More or less we decided to avoid risk and hopefully they are available for Wednesday (Club Brugge).”
Brentford had a day to forget with Keane Lewis-Potter’s shot from range hitting the post being their best chance of the evening.
Thomas Frank felt hard done by that his side were not awarded a penalty when Axel Disasi’s push on Kevin Schade was waved away by referee Jarred Gillett.
“I think Disasi’s clearly taken him out,” Frank said. “I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to do that.”
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