Aston Villa boss Unai Emery admitted his side executed the perfect plan after they earned a dominant 4-0 victory over Nottingham Forest to overturn a first-leg deficit and reach the Europa League final.
Chris Wood’s penalty in the first leg gave Vitor Pereira’s side the edge heading into the second leg but Ollie Watkins levelled the aggregate scores with the opener in the 36th minute.
Forest failed to deliver the type of performance that saw them go 10 games unbeaten and they went behind in the tie 13 minutes after the interval courtesy of Emi Buendia’s penalty before John McGinn’s double sealed a 4-1 aggregate win and a trip to Istanbul on May 20.
Villa are through to their first European final in 44 years where they will face German side Freiburg as Emery hunts a fifth Europa League title, having won three with Sevilla and one with Villarreal.
He told a press conference: “At Villa Park we were expecting something different.
“Today we tried to prepare better, push with the players and we did it. We were focusing on what we needed to improve and the players responded fantastic. How we won the match was in the plan we had.
“They were so focused. It was the only match we played with this circumstances, semi-final, we did two years ago in Conference League but we played the second leg away. Now we can feel happy and proud.”
The Prince of Wales was in attendance and even joined in celebrations inside the dressing room afterwards.
Emery added: “He was in the dressing room with the players and with me, and of course he is so happy as well.”
Villa will quickly switch their attention back to the Premier League where they have three games to secure their place in the Champions League next term.
Emery said: “We still have a final to play. We can win and we can lose the final and if we lose we have achieved nothing.
“We need the Premier League. We need to try and focus on the match on Sunday to get Champions League positions and hopefully we can get it in the Premier League and then the final.”
Nottingham Forest were unable to cling on to their first-leg advantage and were beaten for the first time since a 1-0 defeat to Midtjylland in this competition in March.
Forest, who were without Morgan Gibbs-White, will now look to secure their Premier League status this weekend with a home fixture against Newcastle.
Pereira said: “If you look at our bench today we brought three players in condition to play and three players injured, three boys from the academy and Murillo with a risk to play.
“In the end, I’m proud of my team and players, of our supporters, but today we came without conditions to compete for the final. Difficult conditions for us.
“They tried everything but we didn’t have the solutions. It was a tough result but it was a long road till the semi-final.
“A sad and difficult day but we need to look for the future. It is difficult to compete at this level every three days losing players.”
