Date published: Thursday 14th February 2019 10:23
Despite a humiliating 1-0 defeat to BATE Borisov in the Europa League, Unai Emery has remained positive and said he is ‘happy’ with the effort of his players.
Stanislav Dragun scored the only goal of the game as the home side claimed a famous win over the Gunners.
After the game Emery said: “We play another 90 mins next week and I’m sure it’s going to be different. First half was a good performance, we had chances to score, sometimes last week we had chances and it’s goal and today is not. I am happy with players’ effort.
“Defensively when they were 1-0 they were organised and competitive. Our big opportunity is next week at home. Today is not the result we wanted. We deserved more but they worked for this. Next week is going to be different.
“It’s the first match. We play the next match in London and I think it can be different. I trust in our players and in our stadium with our supporters. I trust in our work and preparations to make a different result.”
When asked about the red card incident which saw Alexandre Lacazette sent-off, Emery said: “I didn’t see the action. We spoke and we need to control the frustration. It’s bad news the red card. We are not going to play with him next week.”
The manager was also questioned about the lack of Mesut Ozil. Emery responded: “Every player is OK to play. Today those that were here, we can win with them and we deserved that. Last week we won and we played with the same players. No different performance. We deserved to win but didn’t get the result. They were very organised.”
