Unai Emery rues 'fantastic opportunity' missed after Aston Villa lose to Everton

A point would have been enough to send Villa up to second in the Premier League but instead they were beaten by the Toffees for the first time in the top flight since 2016.

Thierno Barry pounced on mistakes by Pau Torres and Emi Martinez to score the only goal of the game, as David Moyes’ team became only the second to win at Villa Park in the league since August, 2024. 

A visibly unhappy Emery said: “We lost a very good opportunity. We created chances but did not score.

“In other matches with the same chances, sometimes we were winning but today not.

“We conceded a few chances and they scored and the played very well. Defensively, they have a very good structure.

“When they got the advantage with the goal we could not score and recover again, dominating the match.”

Merlin Rohl hit the post after just 11 seconds for the visitors, who also saw Jake O’Brien’s header ruled out for offside.

But Villa, targeting a 12th straight home win, had the better chances with Morgan Rogers denied twice by Toffees goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, while Evann Guessand hit the bar.

The errors by Torres and Martinez proved pivotal. Torres’ miscontrol gifted possession to Dwight McNeil and Martinez then failed to hold the shot, allowing Barry to chip into the net.

Villa, who were without Jadon Sancho due to illness and then lost John McGinn to injury, became increasingly erratic as they hunted an equaliser.

Emery, despite a demeanour which bordered on angry, sought to put some perspective on the result in what has been an excellent overall season.

“In the Premier League it is a marathon, 38 matches,” he said. “Today we are frustrated but everything we did before is for something.

“We lost the opportunity to be second in the league which is something really fantastic but our target in the league is to try and get our best in 38 matches.

“Until the day 34 I am not going to speak about the opportunity we have because it depends.

“If we were winning today or losing it was three points. Three points at the end of the season usually makes a big difference.

“We are doing a fantastic season. When we played at Everton things were completely different.

“Today we lost a very good opportunity but after feeling our frustration at losing we must try to recover the good positive way we are doing.

"A lot of matches we play like that we win. They competed well, this is Premier League - they're a very good team and they have a very good coach."