Unai Emery makes surprising admission about Aston Villa’s top four ambitions

Emery guided the club into the Champions League last season but believes repeating the feat may be beyond him

Aston Villa boss Unai Emery says his side are not contenders for a repeat Champions League qualification this term.

Villa enjoyed a brilliant Premier League campaign to book their spot in Europe’s elite club competition for the first time and they are set to enjoy the rewards of that this season.

Emery says seven teams are better placed to battle it out for the top four ahead of them, naming Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Manchester United, Chelsea and Newcastle.

“The expectations for this year are different because we are going to play in the Champions League,” Emery said ahead of the season-opener at West Ham.

“This is fantastic for us, it’s a new motivation and the best level in the football world.

“We are going to try and be competitive and try to do our way. The expectation for us in the Premier League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup is the same.

“We’re not contenders to be in the top four. We’re not starting being contenders to be in the top five. There are seven teams who are contenders more than us.

“We achieved last year a top-four position and we have to be demanding, intelligent, hard-working.

“Other teams are contenders more than us to be in the top four, five, six and seven – and we have to try to beat them.

“They have more capacity than us and we are trying to develop in every direction we can do.

“We are trying to reduce the distance to those teams and we are doing it, but there are still seven teams with more capacity than us at the beginning of the season.”

Emery will have seen how Newcastle fared last season when they had to juggle the Premier League with the Champions League, but has vowed to be competitive.

“We are demanding of ourselves and we want to keep the same spirit we had last year to compete. Trying to be in with the top seven.

“We are going to compete in the Champions League and I want to compete being a protagonist.

“I don’t want to play in the Champions League getting there and not being competitive.

“We will be competitive. I have experiences in different European competitions and we competed very well three years ago with Villarreal, getting the semi-finals.

“It was fantastic, but now my new challenge is to do something similar with Aston Villa.

“I don’t know about getting to quarter-finals or semi-finals, but we have to be competitive and play each match facing the best teams in the world.

“In the Premier League, we have to keep the same competitive spirit we had last year.”