We Lost Because We Let Manchester United Win—Unai Emery

Unai Emery and his Aston Villa side were minutes from achieving success in doing the double on Manchester United within one week of facing each other in competitive games but somehow, the team’s inconsistency became its own nemesis eventually as they fell to a 4-2 defeat despite leading twice in the game.

The game was by every means a reflection of what happened on the final match day of last season that saw a Steven Gerrard Aston Villa side fall to a famous 3-2 defeat despite leading with a 2 goal cushion against Manchester City just to deny Liverpool the premier league title.

It all happened within 15 minutes; 15 minutes of the team being out of it to gift the opposition chances of hurting them back despite holding the advantage.

And now, Unai Emery, the head coach of Aston Villa, has provided an explanation for why his club lost Thursday night’s Carabao Cup third-round match against Manchester United.

Unai Emery claimed that the reason Manchester United defeated his Aston Villa team in the Carabao Cup was because Erik ten Hag’s team performed better in the final 15 minutes of the game, and he added that his players’ mentality deteriorated.

The former Arsenal manager watched as Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford, Bruno Fernandes, and Scott McTominay scored to help Man United defeat Aston Villa 4-2 at Old Trafford.

“I’m happy with our performance for 75 minutes; we competed very well, and in the first half we were defensively strong,” Emery told Sky Sports.

“We were in a good moment for the second half. We had more options in attack and scored twice, but when they scored quickly, we needed to close the spaces between our lines and not open the match.

“They had 15 minutes at the end, better than us. We have to achieve in our mind the good moment we did tonight, and only in the end minutes our mentality was a bit going down.”