Unai Emery insists his Aston Villa side still have belief despite falling to a 3-1 defeat to PSG in their Champions League quarter-final first leg in Paris on Wednesday.
Morgan Rogers had given Villa a surprise lead at a raucous Parc des Princes after 35-minutes, but sublime goals from Desire Doue, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Nuno Mendes completed the comeback for the dominant Ligue 1 champions.
The result means Emery’s side have a monumental task on their hands in the second leg if they are to have any hope of progressing to the last four of Europe’s elite club competition.
Defeat in Paris — we head to Villa Park for the second leg next week. #PSGAVL #UCL pic.twitter.com/jUYsB1adgF
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But the Villa boss believes with the home support his team have the capability of causing an upset next week at Villa Park.
“More or less the expectation I had in 90 minutes [tonight] happened,” admitted Emery.
“The result, maybe there is not much difference between 2-1 and 3-1 because we will play at home next week. It will still be a huge challenge for us but we can feel strong at home with our support.
“We knew before the match we needed to be clinical and we were clinical in the first half. The second half not.
“The match is the first leg. Of course the result is not good for us but it could be one positive to be at home where we can get our momentum and use our power.
“We believe in our support, we believe in Villa Park. We believe the players can give the best performance next week.”
Rogers echoed the sentiments of his manager, adding that the players have nothing to lose.
“We’ve got another leg to try and turn it around and we’re going to go for everything and try and win the tie and, ultimately, we’ll see where it takes us,” said Rogers.
“We didn’t want to come here [Paris] and just be spectators. We wanted to take part and try and compete and I felt we did that for large parts. Obviously the scoreline is not great but we’ve got another game and we’re going to try and turn it around.
“We have got the quality to turn this around.”
Morgan Rogers looks ahead to PSG’s visit to Villa Park following tonight’s defeat 🏟
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“We’ve got quality in our dressing room. We’re here for a reason. We want to fight, we want to try and win and ultimately we’ve got enough quality to cause any team in the world problems.
“We’ve got nothing to lose. No one had us to win the tie in the first place so why not just go for it. That’s the mentality I have, that’s the mentality we all have and the manager has.
“We’ve just got to keep going for it and keep believing that we can do it and see where it takes us. We’ve definitely got the quality to turn this around so it’s not done yet.”
Villa welcome PSG to Villa Park on Tuesday evening, with kick-off at 20:00 UK time.
