Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has been speaking to the media before Tuesday’s Champions League game away to Young Boys (17:45 BST).
Here are the key lines from his news conference:
Leon Bailey will train with the side in Bern this evening and is in the squad to face Young Boys.
Emery paid tribute to former striker Gary Shaw who died on Monday: “My condolences for the family and all the supporters. We are remembering always. We have in our training ground the team from 1982 with the European Cup and he was one of the protagonists.”
On Villa’s return to the Champions League: “We are excited. I think it’s a good moment for the club after a long time. Hopefully we can keep it a long time. It’s a challenge.”
Emery added that he and his staff are “very motivated”, stating: “We can use our own experiences as coaches because we’ve played in Europe in three competitions. But, the most important experiences is the ones we had last year here together.”
His hopes for the campaign: “I want to be competitive. I want to face every team being competitive like we are in the Premier League. Best in the world are in Champions League and Premier League. How far we can get I don’t know but I am not going to refuse any objective in this competition.”
On the challenge posed by Young Boys: “I’ve played against other teams here [in Switzerland] and it’s always very difficult. They are a nice team, they have a lot of pace with strikers and wingers, very good in transition, very good physically.”
He added the artificial pitch Young Boys play on is “no excuse”: “Usually we have our training session in Birmingham and then travel but we have our training session here because we want to adapt. We can play like we are.”
Emery is a fan of the new Champions League format: “I prefer this one. I think it needed to change and I think this one is going to be better. Play more matches during the process, not knockout games so quick. I think it is more fair and even more attractive for the supporters.”
Follow all of Monday’s Champions League news conferences and the rest of the day’s football news
