Facing Arsenal is “nothing new” for Unai Emery, the Villareal boss claimed.
Arsenal beat Slavia Prague 4-0 on Thursday to progress to the Europa League semi-finals
They are all set up to face Villareal who also got past Dinamo Zagreb in the quarter-finals. Emery’s history with the North London club will definitely raise the tension between these two teams.
“First of all, I’m used to meeting former teams so playing Arsenal, where I coached, is nothing new as an experience. We’ll face up to it with humility, pride and responsibility,” Emery said.
“This is a chance to establish Villarreal on the top rung of European football. The key thing is for us to enjoy what we’ve done so far and enjoy the opportunity to break our record of reaching semi-finals but not then going on to the European finals.”
Emery has won the Europa League four times in a row with Sevilla.
“We tried not to lose the ball cheaply to allow Dinamo to counter,” Emery said of the performance.
“We tried to be patient and control the game, to prevent Dinamo creating goal chances, and when it was 2-1, you could see what they were made of and how they knocked Tottenham out.
“Across the two matches, justice was done and we deserved to be in the semi-finals.”
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