Unai Emery sat down with the media at the Jan Breydel Stadium on Monday evening ahead of Aston Villa's Champions League clash against Club Brugge tonight.
His side will be looking to avoid defeat or, even better, take a lead back to Villa Park for next Wednesday's second leg. Here is every word Emery said in the pre-match press conference...
What is the team news?
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"Onana and Barkley are not available. Andres Garcia and Donyell Malen because they are not on the list. Other players are in the squad.
"Coming back after injury – Pau Torres is in the squad, Tyrone Mings after he wasn’t on Friday, Matty Cash and Boubacar Kamara. He was on Friday, but on the bench, for tomorrow he could start playing minutes as well."
What have you learned from the last game against Brugge?
"We are always trying to analyse and get information about each match we are playing with the players about the difficulties we’re facing. Brugge, they showed us why they are now here. When they beat us they performed very well and they deserved to win at that moment.
"We are progressing and we are doing very good way in the Champions League. We lost here, but even losing here we got to be in the top eight. We achieved it in front of Atalanta and they were out in the top eight and they were playing together and Brugge played fantastic two matches against Atalanta and deserved to beat them.
"For us it’s a very important match against Brugge, but we know their capacity and potential. I know how competitive they are and how they are doing in the Champions League and when we analyse them we see them playing with confidence and playing strong and it’s a really good challenge to play against a team with experience in Europe and experienced players as well.
"It’s an exciting moment for the season to play with Brugge and try to enjoy the way that we are doing."
Can you win the Champions League?
"I am not thinking in it. I am focusing on each match, each moment and to win is the consequences. It’s not the end, it's the consequences and the process
"I’m always building the process and I like to focus on the process. If you think there (winning the Champions League) you lose the way and maybe you don’t get there. It’s better to get there (with the process) and to go there."
Do you think the best is yet to come from the squad?
"We will see. It’s a challenge. Always we are trying to improve the team and the squad, add with different qualities of the players.
"We added players with experiences of this competition and usually they are players playing in the highest level. They will help us a lot. The process they are doing, adapting with us is going well and getting better and how we want to try to use them in our structure.
"Football is collectively, and then how we can help each player to play in our structure and to help us, we’re not going to get our objective through individual players, it will be collectively building our structure as strong as possible.
"This is a challenge I have, this is the challenge for the players and each one they has their objective as well. Hopefully we can share together in this process and in the next three months our objective collectively and then help the players achieve their objectives."
Can you be a contender this season?
"It’s not time to think about it, it’s time to focus on this match. It depends on tomorrow how we do in the next matches.
"It’s not time to think if we’re better or worse or if we can get there, it’s time to practise and be 100 per cent in our concentration and our targets.
"Tomorrow our target is to win, to be consistent defensively, impose our game plan, stop their tactical idea, and of course we knew when we played against them but now we know them better and we can understand why they have been successful this year in the Champions League.
"To beat them will be really difficult two matches facing against them. Focusing only on tomorrow and trying to concentrate individually and collectively and then to play football."
Why do you think European football brings out your qualities as a coach?
"Every experience I've had before can be important. The most important experience I have now is at Aston Villa. It is a new way. My experience can help a little bit, but it is not really relevant.
"What is relevant is how we can compete now with our structure and our players. Then, it is to try and build a strong structure in the field.
"We can be stronger and play against every team in Europe. The experiences we can have is only to try to get balance and to play to try and manage our emotions as well. Tomorrow is a key moment for the season and the second leg.
"We have to try to be responsible and mature. Emotionally we have to be strong as well."
What is important that you do differently this time?
"We have information about them and us. We played in November and we are now in March. In the process we are doing, hopefully we can get better now. To compete is one thing that you have to do in every match.
"We analysed the game we played here. We didn’t compete like we usually do. We have to get the best mentality from our individual players and combination in our tactical idea.
"When we played here we didn’t compete like I wanted to do. We analysed why we didn’t compete like hopefully we will tomorrow. Firstly, it is knowing them better and trying to compete to stop them.
"Then, trying to get the best of us in our structure, game plan and then playing football, doing all our best, being balanced emotionally."
How important is Asensio's experience?
"It’s a challenge for us and him. We are going to see tomorrow how we can compete with the new players we have. How they are adapting quickly in our structure because tomorrow we will need to be defensively strong and when we have the ball try to keep dominating the match as we usually want to do.
"Our challenge of course is through the players we have, Asensio, Rashford and other players. Playing away in the last matches we lost nine and won three. Not very good results we achieved, but to get balance we are feeling very strong at home.
"Getting balance, at home we played 23 matches with only two defeats. We lost to Arsenal in the Premier League against Arsenal and Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup.
"We feel strong and consistent at home but not away. In this competition we won at Young Boys, lost at Brugge, won at Leipzig and lost at Monaco – two and two.
"Of course, that was good enough as we got top eight, but tomorrow we have to be better away from home and compete better than we did and be stronger in our consistency than we were in Brugge and Monaco. Hopefully we can feel strong and comfortable trying to face them with our capacity."
