UNAI EMERY DELIVERS A ‘PAINFUL’ ASSESSMENT OF ASTON VILLA FOLLOWING BOURNEMOUTH’S LATE EQUALISER

Unai Emery admits Bournemouth’s late equaliser against Aston Villa is “painful” to take, but was proud of his side’s performance.
Ross Barkley came off the bench for the start of the second half and opened the scoring for Villa in the 78th minute, but Villa failed to hold on to their lead as they conceded in the 96th minute. Evanilson glanced his header past Emi Martinez from Marcus Tavernier’s cross.
“We played a fantastic match, against this team was very difficult,” Emery told BBC Match of the Day. “We imposed our ideas. We created chances to score in the first half, we had one goal which was not because the ball was out.
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“We improved even in the second half and for 35 minutes we played fantastic. We created chances, we stopped them, and we scored the goal. But we knew before how we needed to be always ready for everything, because they are a team who are always going forward when they get the ball.
“At the last moment we didn’t control the match. For the last 10 minutes we didn’t control. Of course we deserved to win, but we have to accept it. It’s painful but we have to accept it.
“We are being very demanding and we want to be in the top position in the league. But we have to accept that we are continuing. We are having a fantastic start in the league and Champions League and we are of course frustrated because we want to win.”
Despite failing to get over the line to claim what would have been their sixth league game, Villa have extended their unbeaten run in all competitions to 11 matches.