Aston Villa manager Unai Emery dismissed the notion it will be a failure if they do not win the Europa League this season.
Villa face Nottingham Forest in the second leg of their semi-final on Thursday, with Emery’s side needing to overturn a 1-0 deficit from the first leg.
They head into the game on the back of three successive defeats in all competitions. Villa lost 1-0 at Fulham prior to the first leg, and received significant criticism as a much-changed side produced a dismal performance in a 2-1 home loss to relegation-threatened Tottenham.
Villa will be desperate to rediscover momentum and reach a first European final since their triumph in the European Cup in 1982.
They have come up short in two previous semi-finals in Emery’s reign, losing at this stage in the Conference League in 2023-24 before slumping to a surprise defeat to Crystal Palace in the FA Cup semi-final last season.
Aston Villa boss rejects talk of failure
Villa entered the semi-final with Forest as the clear favourites to lift the trophy, with Sporting Braga and Freiburg contesting the other last-four tie.
The prospect of another missed opportunity to claim silverware is a painful one for Villa, but Emery took a big picture view when speaking at his pre-match press conference on Wednesday.
“We are usually getting higher level with the club, with the players. We are improving — myself as well,” he said.
“We will have after tomorrow our way to set more challenges for the present or future. I don’t think tomorrow is the last opportunity for us or for anyone.
“The players of course they are enjoying the process we are doing. They are aware about the difficulties of football, but how the greatest moment we are having here in Aston Villa the last three years and we can smile and be proud of everything.
“But of course we are still so, so demanding, so, so consistent with everything we are doing. It’s not going to break anything in our thinking, our process, how things are improving.
“To achieve the semi-final is a huge achievement. Winning a trophy is very difficult. Very, very, very difficult. It’s not a defeat if we are not achieving a trophy.
“The only way forwards is to keep going, improving, having opportunities in the present and the future. We have now the opportunity but only one team wins.
“When I spoke before the first leg, we had 25 per cent of the possibility to win a trophy. Now it’s maybe less because we started losing.
“We have 50% or maybe less to play the final. This is football and you must respect every competition and in Europe you must respect each team.”
