Emery left to rue another frustrating European away day with Villa

Unai Emery was unsurprised by Aston Villa's defeat to Go Ahead Eagles after another European away day during the Spaniard's tenure ended without success. 

Emery watched on as his side were pegged back by the Eredivisie team, having seen Evann Guessand open the scoring at De Adelaarshorst with just four minutes on the clock. 

Mathis Suray restored parity four minutes before the break before Go Ahead Eagles captain Mats Deijl but the hosts in front just after the hour with a smart finish past Emiliano Martinez. 

Villa did, however, have the chance to seal a share of the spoils in the 76th minute after Dean James handled the ball inside the area, but Emiliano Buendia blazed the resulting penalty over Jari De Busser's crossbar. 

The result saw Villa suffer their first defeat in nine games across all competitions (W5 D3), having come into Thursday's match on a five-game winning streak.

It was also just the second time in the last three seasons Villa scored first in a major European game and went on to lose (P17 W14 D1 L2), also doing so against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League last season.

Emery, however, says the unexpected loss is par for the course, with Villa often coming unstuck on European away days over the last three seasons.

"And today showed us how difficult it is to play in Europe, to play away," Emery said. "This is the reason I love football, because football has a lot of different ways to win.

"You can dominate, like we did, you have chances to score, but if we are conceding a few chances, maybe you can lose. And we did.

"Of course, I have had a lot of experiences like today, and we have here with Aston Villa a lot of experiences like today.

"And sometimes we were performing very well and winning, and sometimes not winning. And this year, Feyenoord [on matchday two], we weren't playing very well.

"Today, we had more chances than them, but we lost. This is football. But we are very demanding, analysing deeply why you are better than the opponent, but you are losing."

Following Buendia's miss, the Villans have now failed to convert four of their five penalties in major European competition since the start of 2023-24 (excluding shoot-outs).

It was Villa's sixth missed penalty in the last 12 months, with Ollie Watkins missing against Bologna earlier this season, while they also lost a penalty shootout to Brentford in the EFL Cup last month.

"Today the responsibility was for Buendia," Emery said. "And normally he has good numbers shooting penalties, but he missed.

"Of course, something can happen, and we will try to get more clinical in the penalty shoot than the last penalties we have had.

"Our takers are clear. Buendia was today. [Jadon] Sancho, John McGinn, Morgan [Rogers] as well can shoot penalties.

"And, of course, Emiliano can repeat, but the idea is try to be so, so responsible about the decision and about the takers who can score."

But with Manchester City up next in the Premier League, Emery insisted that it was imperative his Villa team got back to winning ways. 

"We keep going forward, thinking about Manchester City at home on Sunday," Emery added.

"Today we have broken our good form, but we have to react quickly and recover. There's still work to do in how we want to build the team.

"The idea and the message is to keep going forward and prepare for the next match, trying to take experience tactically, individually and how we manage 90 minutes."