Aston Villa head coach Unai Emery has expressed confidence that his team is ready to vie for major trophies as they gear up to face Bologna in their third Champions League fixture of the season.
The Birmingham-based club has emerged victorious in both of their Champions League matches so far, marking their return to European football’s top-tier competition for the first time since the 1982-83 season.
"I don't want to waste my time here, that is my message. You can't waste your time here," Emery stated during a press conference on Monday.
"My objective here is to keep the same level we have now, Champions League and add more to be contenders for titles.
"This is the message, we love football, we love our work and we want to be successful."
Villa Park is set to host its second Champions League match — the tournament was renamed from the European Cup at the start of the 1992 season — following Jhon Durán's remarkable winning goal against Bayern Munich in their previous outing.
Emery emphasized that he doesn't want his team to be just participants and reiterated his ambition for the club to qualify for the competition consistently.
"We want to achieve the objectives and one of them is to play in the Champions League. It is not about playing there only because of some circumstances -- I want to us to stay there for a long time," the Spanish coach said.
"But it is difficult. Maybe sometimes you can have some problems or struggle in our way, but you have to be resilient. We want to be strong in the idea in our mind and create a strong mentality to always break barriers.
"We can believe, working like we are doing, we can keep it. This is my challenge, this is my objective now.”
Fenerbahce coach Jose Mourinho voiced his frustration with local journalists on Sunday after his team fell further behind Super Lig leaders Galatasaray, stating that he is "always" questioned about players who aren’t in the lineup.
Fenerbahce settled for a 2-2 draw against Samsunspor in a match that saw them concede a late equalizer.
In response to a reporter's inquiry about why certain players were not participating, Mourinho, who took over as Fenerbahce's head coach this summer, said after the match, "I'm starting to learn what Turkey is. I'm surprised that you don't ask why goalkeeper Irfan [Can Eğribayat] doesn't play, I'm surprised that you don't ask about [forward] Cenk Tosun; I'm surprised because you always ask about the players that don't play.
"For me, [Dušan] Tadić has been our best player for some matches, not because he scores important goals, but because of the balance he brings to the team, because of the organization he has in his brain, because he doesn't make positional or decision-making mistakes. If you don't want me to play him, and play somebody who isn't playingmuch, okay.
"Serbian forward Tadić started the match and netted his fifth league goal of the season. He has also tallied four assists in eight league games thus far.
"It's difficult for me to give more reasons because I don't want to analyze my players publicly," Mourinho explained. "I have to protect players and not open up too much about the reasons why this one plays and not the other.
"I understand it is your culture ... You are crying every week for me to play [midfielder] Irfan Kahveci [who came on as a substitute on Sunday] ... sometimes players that you think are phenomenal players, they are not. Sometimes they make critical mistakes that impact the team."
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