Aston Villa made a strong comeback in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals, winning 3-2 against Paris Saint-Germain. However, due to their 3-1 defeat in the first leg, they lost 5-4 on aggregate and failed to advance to the semi-finals.

Unai Emery, speaking to Amazon Prime after the match, said: “Good evening. I am very proud of everything. Reaching this level is the next step forward. I want to achieve success with Aston Villa. We competed in both matches, performed well, but the conditions were not equal. Tonight, we competed better and were close to the result. I want to work towards the next stage with Aston Villa. The fans were fantastic and gave us energy, even when we were 2-0 down. We still have some work to do to perform better and reach our goal.”

Regarding his team’s performance, he said: “Every player at this level has the ability to play and shine. We also shone with our skills. We were focused on our game plan. I only thought about executing the plan and consistency. We attacked, and they were very precise in counterattacks. We knew this. We tried to prevent counterattacks and tonight we went with a new plan and applied more pressure.”

Emery on what his team’s plans are now: “Now, the most important goal is to return to European competitions. The most important tournament is the Champions League. Our challenge in the remaining six matches is to strive for a place in Europe and the Champions League.”

The Aston Villa coach also commented on Marcus Rashford’s performance: “Planning for him is difficult now. He feels better and had an outstanding game tonight. We are very happy. If he is happy, we are happy. It depends on the current conditions and the coming weeks.”