Club Brugge 2-3 Aston Villa: What Emery and McGinn said
- Published
Aston Villa boss Unai Emery, speaking after Villa's 3-2 victory over Club Brugge: "I am so happy today. Thankfully, because we know how we are in the way. What the responsibility we have and I have. But the players as well they have responsibility.
"They need to to keep our standards high to show everybody this is the way that we can achieve the process in our targets and, of course, we are improving after Brighton, after Arsenal, after Hull City. Today another step forward.
"Collectively, tactically, the structure, individually, this victory is through it and, of course, we must work hard. It is the only way. This is the process that we must try to set strong [standards]. Today we did one very important step forward to show it and be resilient in the second half when we were struggling.
"Of course, very important for this Champions League to start with those three points. Hopefully, it gives us confidence for the next matches in the league. Saturday Nottingham Forest, then Carabao Cup, then Tottenham.
"Nicolas Jackson very important [goal] for him. Progressively getting minutes with some players, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, after the injury of Cash it was very important, but he was so tired.
"Again, a good match played Hemmings, again he is improving. We must try to add more players, new players in this structure, this demand and this process we are."
Aston Villa captain John McGinn, speaking to Uefa: "It's a new Villa and it was a big test for the new players to dig in.
"It was Joao Gomes and George Hemmings' first Champions League game.
"It's not easy to go away at a place like this in difficult weather conditions. Club Brugge were pushing and pushing and pushing and we had to stand strong. We managed to do that.
"It was so important to show a real gritty performance and get a victory at a very, very tough place to play."
Did you know?
Aston Villa have won 18 of their 28 matches across the Champions League and European Cup, with their 64.3% win percentage the best of any team in the competition's history to play 10+ matches.
John McGinn netted his 12th goal in major European competitions for Aston Villa, surpassing Ollie Watkins to become the all-time leading goalscorer for the Villans in Europe.
