Unai Emery says Aston Villa paid the price for being unable to cope with Manchester United during a 15-minute spell in the second half of their Carabao Cup tie on Thursday night.
United came from behind twice to defeat Aston Villa 4-2 in a pulsating second half on Thursday night, with Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford canceling out Ollie Watkins' opener and an own goal from Diogo Dalot before Bruno Fernandes and Scott McTominay sealed the win.
It was an ideal response from Erik ten Hag's side following their weekend defeat at Villa Park, and after the game, Emery explained what cost his side the game.
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"I am happy with our performance for 75 minutes; we competed very well, and in the first half we were defensively strong," he told Sky Sports.
"We need to be calmer with the ball, take more possession, and break the press. We were in a good moment for the second half. We had more options in attack and scored twice, but when they scored quickly, we needed to close the spaces between our lines and not open the match.
"They had 15 minutes at the end better than us. We have to achieve in our mind the good moment we did tonight and only the end minutes our mentality was a bit going down. Our challenge is to be consistent."
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