Unai Emery has been talking ahead of Aston Villa taking on Newcastle United.

A 5.30pm kick-off at St James’ Park on Saturday.

Aston Villa currently 16th in the Premier League table and only one win in six so far.

Two clubs that have been massively hit by financial rules imposed by both UEFA and the Premier League.

Forced rebuilds at both clubs as both Newcastle United and Aston Villa have seen the forced sale of key players as they are limited in what they can spend on wages and transfer fees.

Generally younger and cheaper players brought in as replacements.

Unai Emery on Friday saying about Newcastle United and their new look: “Newcastle United had some changes but they signed some very good players. Some players who left, especially in the middle, Bruno Guimarães and Sandro Tonali, they can feel some differences in players and performances. Nico González is a very fantastic player, and I think he’s going to replace them with the quality he has. Adding to it, they have some injuries – more than normal. They are progressively recovering some players.”

Unai Emery now looking forward to his latest match at St James’ Park: “Newcastle in their home is always very difficult. They are going to press, they’re going to play with their supporters pushing them. Individually, they’re going to get duels and be very demanding to beat us. From our side, we must be ready to compete strongly. Strongly defending, strongly offensively as well, very compact, each player focused 100% on his task and doing it. We will need players on the bench ready to play in case we need fresh legs.”

Unai Emery on balancing European and Premier League match demands: “The rotation is coming when the players are ready to play in our demands. This is the only difference. We did some changes on Wednesday after the match we played on Saturday. We did some changes on Wednesday and the players responded as well. This is one step forward, clearly. How I am going to decide for tomorrow, maybe it’s going in the same way, but I need to know how they are playing today because we played on Wednesday and the demand was high. Some players may be tired, some can feel some pain, not injuries but maybe pain. How we will play tomorrow with the starting XI players, I need time. Today, after our training session in the afternoon/evening, more or less, I’m going to clarify myself which players are ready for tomorrow and thinking to be, not 80%, to be 100%.”

Unai Emery on the task of rebuilding the Aston Villa team: “The players are doing a huge effort each match to try to do their task in our demands. The first demand is for myself with the coaches, how we can get our structure with the players we have and the combination with the players in the idea we need to build the team, to face, in the level, we achieved last year to be there. Until now, we didn’t do it. But we are really improving, and we can see, positively, how we can get the next challenges in front of us. So it’s good news how we are improving: some players being inured that are joining us; some players are getting fit; some players are understanding better how we want tactically to work.”

Unai Emery then adding: “We are building the team in the same way we did it three, two, and one years ago, but with the difficult period with some new players and young players to do this gap between the high level and the low level as fast as possible. The results are very important, and the results in. the last matches are getting better. We lost against Nottingham Forest at home in the Premier League. After it, we won in Tottenham and we drew against Brentford. Of course, it was not enough but we showed some improvement. And then in the Champions League, we have started fantastically. In the League Cup, we won one fantastic match as well in Coventry. More or less, we can use those examples to justify that we are improving. But, again, we can be realistic, about the difficult period there is still to do, working hard and improving things.”