For Unai Emery, there was a welcome air of familiarity upon arrival at Basel’s St Jakob-Park on Wednesday. It was a return to Switzerland and the scene of his third Europa League triumph with Sevilla in 2016, when his side overcame Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, 3-1.
“This competition is so, so special for me,” the Aston Villa manager said. “We won here, it was a fantastic day and is a fantastic memory. To remember it is very good.” And then came a big but. Two, in fact. “I want to build a new moment, a new era, a new way with Aston Villa. I can remind myself of the moment I had here.”
Emery is a serial winner when it comes to this competition. He added a fourth with Villarreal in 2021 and Villa are among the favourites to lift the trophy this season. They are the Premier League’s form team after an extraordinary stoppage-time win against Arsenal at the weekend, a result that extended their winning run to seven matches. Victory for Villa on Thursday would take them to 15 points, enough to guarantee automatic qualification for the round of 16 last season, the inaugural league-phase format.
That would prevent a fixture pileup in February – a playoff would present eight games in 28 days fresh from a busy festive schedule – but a top-two finish, as per Uefa regulations this season, would also guarantee home return legs in the event of advancing to the quarter-finals and semi-finals.
“As a priority we can fight to be in the top eight,” Emery said. “It would be a small advantage to play the second leg at home. It’s another target.”
Villa have racked up 13 wins in their previous 15 matches, their most recent defeat coming against Liverpool at Anfield at the start of last month. The other anomaly came in October, in the Netherlands, at the home of Go Ahead Eagles, the Eredivisie club securing a shock comeback win. Just like Go Ahead, Basel, also at risk of elimination, are unfancied but pose a hazard. Basel have won their previous seven home Europa League matches, including both this season. “We are analysing not only when we are being successful and playing fantastic,” Emery said. “We lost the last match we played away in Europe and I want us to remind ourselves.”
The manager must decide whether to rotate, mindful of the trip to West Ham on Sunday, another opportunity to maintain momentum. The Villa defender Matty Cash said it was premature to consider Villa title contenders. “We’ve got to have a bit of Christmas dinner before we think about that,” he said.
Villa, who are working on a €12m (£10.5m) deal to sign the 19-year-old winger Alysson from Grêmio in January, want to continue their upward trajectory in domestic and continental competitions. Their change in form began with a draw at Sunderland on 21 September, when they registered their first league goal of the season.
The Villa midfielder Youri Tielemans said: “We had a conversation around, ‘How can we get back to our level?’ It was down to us players to make it click. Since that day [at Sunderland] we have gone up a level, our standards have stayed really high. We’ve won a lot of games since then, but that doesn’t mean it stops there. We always want to kick on.”
Harvey Elliott was not among the squad that flew from Birmingham to Basel on Wednesday, with Emery acknowledging Villa are seeking a “solution” for all parties. It is increasingly likely that the 22-year-old has played his final game for the club, his fifth and last appearance in Villa colours a late cameo appearance at Feyenoord on 2 October.
Elliott was an unused substitute against Maccabi Tel Aviv and Young Boys, Villa’s previous European matches, and his omission altogether for this trip feels telling. When Villa signed Elliott on deadline day in September, they agreed to an obligation to buy clause where they would have to pay Liverpool £35m if he reached 10 appearances.
Elliott is permitted to play for another club only if they are based outside Uefa’s jurisdiction this season, after playing league minutes for both Liverpool and Villa this term. “We are speaking with him and [about] his situation,” Emery said. “He is not here with us, hopefully we can get the best for him and for us as well. But, of course, I respect him a lot as a player and I respect him a lot as a person.
“He is training very well, but we have circumstances with him and hopefully we can find a solution for him as well, to play consistently or to try to continue in his career – with us, together, or not.”
