Comeback on Emery’s mind as he preaches belief ahead of the 2nd leg against PSG at Villa Park tomorrow night.
Comeback is the word on Emery’s mind as he urged his Aston Villa players to “write history”.
Villa needs to overcome a two-goal deficit following a first-leg loss in France, and the manager of the team has reaffirmed his conviction that his team can shock the opposition. Emery is certain that the “fortress” atmosphere at Villa Park on Tuesday will enable his men to discover a winning recipe.
“I have experiences coming back from results, positively and negatively,” he said. “Now it is something different, we want to write here the history with Aston Villa. Last year [we played] in the Conference League and this year in the Champions League and [now] hopefully for a long time in Europe. My experiences before were different … sometimes losing away and winning at home, sometimes losing at home and winning away. More winning than losing … but I had some negative experiences as well.”
When Luis Enrique’s Barcelona defeated his PSG club 6-1 at Camp Nou in the Champions League in 2017, Emery was the victim of a historic comeback. This humbling last-16 loss, known as La Remontada (“The Comeback”), occurred after PSG won the first leg 4-0. After recovering from a 2-0 first-leg loss to Real Betis earlier in the season, Emery led Sevilla to victory in the 2014 Europa League, his first major European triumph.
Emery added: “I’m not going to remind the players of those experiences because my idea and my every word with the players inside is sending the message of how we are getting experiences together here with Aston Villa. With the players we are, with the experiences we are adding in our bag last year and this year. As well with the combination we have with our players mentally and as well tactically to play, being so, so demanding in our process to get opportunities and believing to beat PSG. We need to use Villa Park like a fortress. We have felt it a lot of times. We have to believe.”