• 17 hours ago
Matt Maher's gives his take as Aston Villa were beaten 1-0 away at Monaco in the Champions League.
The defeat leaves Villa scrambling for a top eight spot and automatic qualification to the next round.
They need to beat Celtic in the final league phase game and may need other results to go their way in order for them to advance.
Transcript
00:00Good evening from Monaco where the press conference room is in the process of
00:04being dismantled so if this video cuts out you'll know why. Not a great night for Villa
00:101-0 defeat here in the Principality on the Mediterranean and Unai Emery after
00:16the game perhaps the angriest I think he's been what two years three months in
00:21charge of Villa. He took aim at some of his players claiming they lacked the
00:26right mentality. He took aim at himself admitting that he got it tactically
00:31wrong in the second half and he took aim at his set pieces and click team set
00:35pieces as well second describing them as horrible. Really frustrating night for
00:39Villa and Unai Emery fears that they have blown their chance of finishing in
00:42the top eight of the Champions League group stage which obviously would have
00:46sent them through or would send them through to the last 16 automatically and
00:50avoiding the playoff round. Instead it's all going to be on next week's final
00:55game against Celtic when there's going to be a whole host of teams involved. I
00:59mean it really will be a case of get the get the abacus down from the loft to use
01:04a well-worn cliche. Villa have to win and will probably need to get some help
01:09elsewhere if they're going to finish in the top eight and go straight through to
01:13the last 16. You know not a huge amount in the game tonight but Villa
01:17were poor and they got worse 55 minutes in when Unai Emery brought John
01:22Duran on. There's been a lot of talk obviously about pairing Duran
01:26with Oli Watkins. Can it work? Well tonight it definitively didn't work. Unai Emery
01:31after the game holding his hands up and saying that he made a mistake and the
01:37team got worse after he'd made that decision. Also questioning the mentality of
01:42the players. Very rarely has he had a go at his team but tonight he did in a
01:49very dramatic fashion. Said some players are not following the plan. Named some
01:54players who were following the plan but obviously left some of the names out.
01:57He was asked what he meant by not following the plan or where they were
02:01lacking. He twice tapped his head signifying that they were lacking a
02:07bit the right mentality and then said we need it, we need it. So he's not happy.
02:16He was similarly angry after the defeat of Bruges, earning the Champions League.
02:21This was just for the second defeat in the competition and still really well placed.
02:25They're still through to the playoff round at the very least. The feeling is it
02:29could have been more, it still could be more but it's felt a really big
02:32opportunity lost.

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