Morgan Rogers put in a man of the match display to help Aston Villa pile the misery on Manchester City with a 2-1 win at Villa Park on Saturday and manager Unai Emery raved about his “fantastic” performance
Aston Villa midfielder Morgan Rogers celebrates after scoring against Manchester City
Aston Villa boss Unai Emery hailed Morgan Rogers after his man of the match display against Manchester City
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17:00, 21 Dec 2024
Updated17:08, 21 Dec 2024
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AS Monaco are in something of a crisis heading into Tuesday night’s Champions League clash against Aston Villa. Despite being in the respectable position of fourth in Ligue 1, Adi Hutter’s side have only won one of their last eight matches in all competitions and that victory came against lower league side Union Saint-Jean in the French Cup. Excluding that routine 4-1 win, Monaco have only claimed victory in one of their last 10. Powered by Their young side hasn’t fully recovered from their last defeat to Benfica at home matchweek five of the Champions League league phase. They were winning 2-1 until goals from Arthur Cabral and then Zeki Amdouni turned the game around in the final stages. READ | Why Ollie Watkins ‘got a bit frustrated’ as striker closes in on Aston Villa history READ | Aston Villa’s dream transfer window as five sign and seven leave in January Then, following a defeat at Marseille and a win over Toulouse in the league, Monaco lost 3-0 at Arsenal in matchweek six. It leaves them 16th in the league phase table, but only three points behind Villa in fifth place. After that loss at the Emirates Stadium, Monaco played out a 0-0 draw with Reims before they suffered defeats to Paris Saint-Germain in the league and cup either side of beating Union Saint-Jean. Failure to beat Nantes and then being knocked out of the French Cup via penalties against Reims meant Monaco’s trip to Montpellier was a ‘must win’ to get them back on track. “I think this is the right match to motivate the whole team just before the Champions League,” Mohamed Salisu said before the game. “It is a very important match to get an energy boost and regain confidence in order to best prepare for the match against Aston Villa. We believe in ourselves and we want to take the three points. “We have no doubts, football is about ups and downs depending on the period. We are currently in a bad moment and we have to fight to get back to the top. The season had started very well and we were in good form, we just need to believe in what we are doing on the pitch and listen to the coach’s tactical advice to get back to our level.” But Monaco fell to a shock 2-1 defeat against Jean-Louis Gasset’s Montepellier and Hutter claimed the important match with Villa wasn’t in the minds of his players. Powered by “Today, it’s more than a big disappointment, it’s a real gut punch for us and everyone at the club,” Hutter said after full-time. “At the start of the season, the wins were stacking up, everyone was happy. I have been in professional football for 35 years as a player before and as a coach now. It is not the first time this has happened to me and the main thing I have learned is to stay positive, work on the details and help the team.” Asked if he thought that the Champions League match against Villa could have affected the team’s mentality, Hutter responded: “I don’t think so, I have the feeling that the team was completely focused on this match. You could see that in the first half, we wanted to make the difference quickly but we missed too many chances. In the second half, we wanted to score the second goal but we made an individual error. We then had no right to concede another goal. “We tried to come back after with several chances in the last minutes but it was too little. I have a lot of respect for Montpellier but we needed to impose ourselves to regain confidence. Tuesday will be a completely different match, it’s the Champions League at home, but I don’t think the team already had Aston Villa in mind.” What is your Monaco vs Villa score prediction? Tell us here READ NEXT: Louie Barry makes transfer decision as Aston Villa told he’s ‘ready’ to accept deal Aston Villa transfer news with latest on Garcia and Bade as trio could leave I visited huge new Midland charity shop and wished the previous store never shut down Marks & Spencer has £29.50 ‘best alternative’ to Levi’s that’s £80 cheaper Aston Villa favourite could join Premier League rivals Man City ‘on loan’ Story Saved You can find this story in My Bookmarks.Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right.
January 20, 2025
Unai Emery paid tribute to Morgan Rogers after the former Manchester City man tormented the Premier League champions in a 2-1 win for Aston Villa on Saturday.
Rogers set up Jhon Duran’s opener and scored Villa’s second to continue his superb season, leaving Emery delighted with his contribution.
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The Villa boss said: “Morgan played fantastic today – he is very important. Through him, we are getting the performance back because he links strikers with midfielders and wingers.
“Today, he was fantastic in the second half, connecting with strikers and scoring the goal. He has to add goals to his numbers and today he was fantastic.”
And Emery, whose side went above City in the Premier League table, clearly felt his players deserved the victory. He went on: “In some matches we are maybe not performing as we want, but today we perform.
“We are feeling strong, here we played the first half very well, in the second half we kept possession more and getting in the box to score the second goal, we imposed and dominated more.”
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And Emery was delighted with the performance of Duran, who started ahead of Ollie Watkins. He said: “Jhon played fantastic today. Watkins is fantastic as well – very important for us. Of course you have to work with both strikers, sometimes they play together. I am very happy with them.”
Emery also praised Jhon Duran after scoring his fourth goal in as many games
Another outstanding performer for Villa was Youri Tielemans and the Belgian midfielder highlighted what he thought was key to the victory.
He explained: “It’s about calculating the risk if you want to stay on the ball and be brave. But we really deserved the win, we showed we can play good football.
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“We played really well and defended when we needed to. I was a bit freer in the role my manager asked me to play in. The fact we were on the ball more meant we could play our game. We were good.”
The huge win over City means Villa are now fifth in the table and just two points behind fourth-placed Arsenal, who have a game in hand.
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