Emery insists that Aston Villa needed star quality from the bench to beat Basel | OneFootball

Unai Emery explained that he needed his star men from the bench to beat Basel in the Europa League.

Evann Guessand’s opening goal for Aston Villa was cancelled out by Flavius Daniliuc’s equaliser, but it would be Emery’s men that would get the three points as half-time substitute Youri Tielemans scored the winning goal.

The Villa boss made eight changes from the side that left it late to beat Arsenal at the weekend because of their two-game-a-week schedule.

However, Emery would eventually turn to his regular starters, including Morgan Rogers, Ollie Watkins and Tielemans to help his side win the match.

“I am happy and we knew before the match the difficulties we were facing today,” he said to TNT Sports. “After the last matches, a lot of wars, brilliant wars for us, after our victory against Arsenal, it is not easy to recover our spirit and structure and mentality to keep the same hard work.

“We struggled today and the last 10 minutes they were close to drawing but I am happy with how we got this victory. It is difficult to beat them here.

“Our idea at the start of the season was to manage all the players and give them the chance to play and help us. How we are managing it like today, I like how they are responding and how we are building the team with every player.

“It was the plan to start with Lamar Bogarde because we needed fresh legs. Youri can get into the opponent’s box and score like he did. Other players as well made an impact. We needed that. We needed them to win duels. In the last 10 minutes, they were pushing and we need our players fighting like they did.”