January signings ‘will help a lot’ in Bruges, says Emery

Aston Villa manager Unai Emery says new signings Marco Asensio and Marcus Rashford will help them in the Champions League when they take on Club Brugge on Tuesday.

Asensio has scored four times in his last three appearances while Rashford has been a creative force since arriving on loan from Manchester United.

Villa suffered defeat in Bruges in November, going down to a bizarre second-half penalty after Tyrone Mings picked up the ball from Emiliano Martinez’s goal kick.

Emery said: “We added players with experience in Europe, usually they are playing in the highest level and they will help us a lot, but we will see it.

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“The process they are doing, progressively adapting to us is going well and getting better as well – how we want to try and use our structure, defensively, offensively.

“We are not going to get our objective through only individual players. We are going to get our objective collectively, building our structure as strong as possible.

“Then our individual players can display their skill. This is the challenge we have, it is my challenge, the players’ challenge and each one has the objective, hopefully we can share together, getting our objective in the next three months.”

Emery expects his players to produce a performance in Belgium – and if they win over two legs Villa will face either PSG or Liverpool in the last eight.

Emery said: “When we played here, we didn’t compete like I want to do. And, of course, the players they know, and we analysed why we didn’t compete in that moment.

“Hopefully we can do more. We need to get the balance and to play, trying to manage our emotions well, because now, of course, it’s a key moment for the season, tomorrow and the second leg in this competition.

“And we have to try to play being responsible, being mature and emotionally stronger.”