‘Emery is tactical genius’published at 19:50 GMT 27 December
FT: Chelsea 1-2 Aston Villa
Aston Villa
Aston Villa forward Ollie Watkins, speaking to Sky Sports: “An amazing win. For me personally to come on and score two goals is a great feeling – but to keep up this run and come here, a tough place, and beat Chelsea is amazing.”
On Unai Emery’s tactical tweaks in the second half: “He changed it because Chelsea were going man for man but they had the extra centre-back when we were going long. When I came on in the second half he brought Jadon Sancho and Morgan Rogers on the wing and put Youri Tielemans in the No 10 – so we had an extra man in there. He’s a tactical genius.”
On his own form: “I haven’t been where I want to be but I can use this as a marker to push on for the end of the season.”
On his first goal: “I can’t say that’s a classy finish at the end of the day, but I’ll take it all day long.”
On his second goal: “He wasn’t marking me too tightly, so it’s basically a free header. It’s nice to see it float into the corner.”
Can Aston Villa win the title: “I feel like teams are worried about us, even if we may not play the prettiest football at times. We’re taking each game as it comes and focusing on ourselves really. There’s a lot of talk about us and people asking if we can win the title, but it’s a long way away. We’re just focusing on the next game.”
