Unai Emery finally makes the 'fantastic' Aston Villa admission everyone's been waiting for

Aston Villa news from BirminghamLive as Unai Emery gives verdict after his side's win over Arsenal

Unai Emery has finally admitted Aston Villa are contenders to qualify for Champions League football this season.

For months Emery has batted away talk of challenging for the top four, suggesting that reporters should ask him after the 33rd game of the Premier League season. After beating title challengers Arsenal 2-0 at the Emirates Stadium, Emery had no other option than to give in.

"It's day 33. Okay, 63 [points] … we could now be contenders. We must be very demanding to keep it." He added: "Before the match we were very motivated and very excited about the possibility. This is a very tough match and we needed to be focusing very well defensively.

"We wanted to be strong and have high commitment to defence as we were in the first half. We tried to do 90 minutes being consistent and wait for our moment to control the game.

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"The first half was more difficult but we tried to dominate with the ball. We did that less than in the second half. Second half we competed very well. But we are not being consistent in every match like I want. But today we were fantastic.

"We analyse deeply before each match and we played 10 ago at Manchester City and lost 4-1. We were trying to understand a lot of things we did good but we needed one step to do something better.

"Today was an example. Firstly, it was in defence. The defence was strong. We tried to be narrow and avoid line passes. then be compact with the players. More or less, that was the first idea we had.

"Then it as about trying to get time with the ball. We did, better in the second half and we imposed ourselves."

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