Unai Emery: “We worked [towards the game] thinking that they had their full-strength team,”

After last night’s 1 - 1 draw between Villarreal and Real Madrid at the Ceramica, our very own Kiyan Sobhani posed the question to Villarreal manager Unai Emery in the post-game presser: “Would you have approached this game differently if Real Madrid had Casemiro, Valverde, and more defensive security in midfield available?”

Emery’s response implied that his game-plan wouldn’t have deviated.

“We worked [towards the game] thinking that they had their full-strength team,” Emery said. “Real Madrid can make changes, but those that played are players that are used to winning the Champions League.

“Our preparation has been the same and I don’t think the result would’ve been different.”

Emery also said that his team deserved to win the game, and that it took them about 20 minutes or so to get back on track and retake control of the game after conceding early.

“We were off the pace for 20 minutes because [the goal] ruined our initial plan. But we got better and better, we got closer to their box.

“We got through the out-of-control phase. We had a few headed shots in the first half and little else. In the second half, we had four clear chances at goal and they had one for [Dani] Carvajal.

”You can be satisfied drawing with the league champions but, from what happened over the course of 90 minutes, I get the feeling that the game could’ve gone our way. That doesn’t take us off course or away from our idea of what we want to do. My satisfaction is limited because I think we deserved to win.”