Emery on Onana availability, semi-finals and Forest

Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has been speaking to the media before Thursday’s Europa League semi-final, first leg tie against Nottingham Forest at the City Ground (kick-off 20:00 BST).

Here are the key lines from his news conference:

Amadou Onana could return to the squad as Emery confirms he will see on Wednesday afternoon if the midfielder is “feeling good to play”, after missing the defeat at Fulham last weekend.
On how he feels going into the semi-final, Emery said: “How we are alive in this moment in this competition and how we’ve been performing is fantastic. But now in the semi-final it’s 50-50 for both teams and very important for both teams. Nottingham Forest have history in Europe winning the Champions League and we have our history as well but not recently. Recently we want both teams to keep doing something important in Europe.”
Emery has now reached three semi-finals for Villa and the Spaniard wants to use those shared experiences to get his players to “respond better” and make it through to a final this time around.
With four years at Villa Park under his belt, Emery was asked about the value of stability. He said: “I’m not thinking a lot about it. I’m always focusing on each moment and of course if I can take two minutes to think about it – how we are here and competing in the Europa League is fantastic. How we’re in the top five in the Premier League is fantastic. We need to win tomorrow because football is win, again to win, again to win and again to win. It’s the only way you can survive.”
Villa will host Vitor Pereira’s side next week in the second leg and Emery isn’t expecting his side to take a lead back to the West Midlands, but he does “expect” his team to “be competitive and try to dominate”.
On facing a fellow Premier League side, Emery said: “It’s the same, but not the same in that you have to manage each moment. Even the first half of the first leg and the second half of the second leg – they are different and I expect it to be a lot. Why? Because they are performing very good, playing with confidence from the last two matches and they were amazing. They scored four and five goals in the matches they played. In the Europa League as well as – being competitive and how in the last two rounds they competed fantastically.”
He continued: “I expect a very intelligent match from them and hopefully of course, we play intelligently and compete and try to enjoy. We can feel it with the supporters and the players, everyone involved in this semi-final. We must try to enjoy the preparation and the match.”