Villa have taken out Preston North End, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and Cardiff City to reach their first FA Cup semi for a decade. Emery is yet to win a trophy in England and will be seeking revenge after the Eagles knocked his side out of the EFL Cup. He first spoke on rotating his side after facing Manchester City in midweek.
Rotation is key
“Rotation is not because you’re playing one match after, it’s because you’re playing one match before, because some players are tired or maybe got injured.
“We played a really hard match on Tuesday and did very good work there, but after this match the first thing was about how the players are for the selection of the starting XI.
“Tomorrow is a match that we will need the starting XI and players on the bench to be ready to play.
“We’re ready for 90 minutes, extra-time and a penalty shootout. We’re ready to play a match with every player that is available for tomorrow.”
Emery has a lot of respect for Glasner
Emery then commented on rival manager Oliver Glasner and says he admires him and they way his side have performed this campaign.
“We always respect them. They’ve performed fantastically against us. We will try to identify our capacity to dominate the match, to impose our positioning, our combination with the players, and our individual duels.
“They’re a team playing fantastic football, and I respect this coach because he’s a winning coach. He won the Europa League and his experiences in England with Crystal Palace are being really fantastic.
“He’s getting the semi-final and he’s performing very well. Sometimes he’s not achieving the results to be better in the league, but they are performing very well. Against us, they showed it. I respect them a lot.”
Emery's objectives?
Villa still have a chance of securing European football for next season and Emery was questioned on his objectives for the end of the season where so much is at stake.
“When you start the season, you are trying to set some objectives for the end of the season through four competitions – Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup.
“We are still in two competitions – Premier League because it’s 38 matches and the FA Cup. We finished the Champions League. We’re focusing on each match in each competition, trying to get our best.
“To be in Europe is one clear objective we have. The first way to get Europe is through the Premier League, but getting the trophy in the FA Cup you can play in the Europa League. It’s the second objective we can have in the competition.
“Now, we can’t choose only one competition, we are choosing both competitions strongly because we have two ways for our objective.”
Villa want to go all the way
Finally, he opened up on contending for a trophy and how it was one of his main objectives when joining the club.
“As a coach, my challenge when I arrived here was to get some trophies during the way. This is one opportunity because we’re in a semi-final, but there is still a lot of work to do.
“When you’re getting experiences and getting some trophies during those experiences, the most important thing I enjoyed and learned was during the way, not the end. How we are doing this year in the FA Cup is really amazing.
“This is the process I want to enjoy. I want to enjoy the semi-final and everything we are going to do, from the way we are doing, travelling to London, being together, preparing the match, having some meetings, the atmosphere tomorrow in Wembley. At the end, the objective is to win, but the process is the really important thing.”