Mueez Ajao
– Unai Emery admitted that Villarreal’s objective was to secure the best possible result ahead of the return leg of their Champions League semi-final against Liverpool at the Estadio de la Ceramica.
– The Yellow Submarine will host the Reds on Tuesday, May 3, where they will attempt to turn the tie around despite their 2-0 defeat at Anfield.
– “In the semi-finals you have to play such powerful opponents, in such a great moment as the one they are,” Emery said after the game.
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– “Today it was a game that, wanting to win, wanting to take control, they didn’t let us. Today it was about resisting defensively as much as we could to have a chance in the second game. And we did that. It will be different there. We will give a lot more.”
– Emery went on to stress that Villarreal’s plan didn’t work out and admitted that his team deserved to lose by at least two goals.
– “It’s Liverpool and we know that they are the favourites and that they are better but also that we can compete with them and get our chances,” added the Villarreal coach.
– “There are moments, with negative results, that when it’s two games you have to know how to relativise. We didn’t deserve anything better than a 2-0 [defeat].
– “We have to try to make sure that the home game is different, that we play as we want. We had a plan and the idea didn’t work out.
– “It could have been worse because there are some offside goals, we defended in low [block] situations, we didn’t have chances.
– “It could have been worse because we didn’t have expectations to improve this result. We have 90 minutes and we will try to make it different.
– “We are here because we have done something. I’m hopeful that we’ll play another game at home.”
