Press conference

'The first 60 minutes were very good tonight'

Unai Emery was a satisfied man after we chalked up our fourth win on the spin with a 4-2 victory against Vorskla on Thursday night.

But our head coach felt we needed to tighten up in the closing stages when we conceded twice on the counter.

This is what Emery told the media:

on how satisfied he is with the performance tonight…

We are happy because the first match here with our supporters is first important to win. At the beginning of this competition, it’s important to take confidence and take the first victory. I think the first 60 minutes were good with imposing our ideas against them and also, little by little in the match, winning battles on the pitch to be near to scoring. With the four goals, I think we are in a good moment. But we want to be competitive for 90 minutes and I think the last 20 minutes, we conceded chances and we need to improve. Our disappointment today is that there were two goals conceded. But I am going to think that the first 60 minutes were very good and that we are going to continue impressing with those ideas.

on Auba’s two goals…

Our mind today is to take confidence for the players and also take minutes in the game to give them these chances to play and also, we need because we are going to play a lot of matches in the next week. With this confidence we want to score, we want them to take this confidence, like Aubameyang and Welbeck and also Mesut. I think there are a lot of positive things today in the game and for continue impressing and improving.

on no clean sheets…

It’s one thing. We are speaking before each match to take a mentality of ‘don’t concede chances easily’.  I think today is a good opportunity for not accepting goals, but the last 30 minutes, we needed to be better on this competitive aspect.

on the crowd…

We are starting and we need in this competition, we need to show them, our supporters, that we are excited for this competition and we want to do a great way in the Europa League. But I think it’s step by step. I am sure they are going to come, little by little, more supporters here with us. But also, it’s our work to bring them here.

on what he made of the two goals Vorskla scored…

It’s our disappointment today. But I also, with confidence, little by little we are conceding a few chances to the opposition, the same like in Newcastle. But we need to continue to improve on this because in the last minute in Newcastle and again today in the last 20 minutes, we conceded two goals. Our challenge is to be competitive for 90 minutes of each match and this is one thing to improve.