{"id":653398,"date":"2026-05-06T13:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T13:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/653398\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T13:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T13:42:10","slug":"football-live-europa-and-conference-league-news-conferences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/653398\/","title":{"rendered":"Football live: Europa and Conference League news conferences"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;Emery will deflect or dismiss Villa concerns&#8217;published at 14:15 BST<\/p>\n<p>14:15 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-fxb76l-Paragraph e14e9ror4\">Aston Villa v Nott&#8217;m Forest (0-1 agg; Thu, 20:00 BST)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1l98ssq-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/9e5c089b-2e9b-4602-b743-ff14a7b27fe0.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Nick Mashiter<br \/>BBC Sport football news reporter<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Unai Emery\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/c22d09d4-22e2-4abc-9d9a-c4c0eaa964d3.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"940\" height=\"528\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Unai Emery will be typically calm ahead of the biggest game of his Aston Villa reign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The head coach will deflect or dismiss any concerns about their recent form, reiterating Villa are in a Europa League semi-final for the first time under him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They go into Thursday&#8217;s second leg against Nottingham Forest trailing 1-0 from last week&#8217;s first leg at the City Ground.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When Emery faces the media he will, rightly, point to their successes this season, having been in the title race as recently as February and the faith he has in the squad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Yet Sunday&#8217;s wretched 2-1 defeat to Tottenham has added to the anxiety on the terraces after Emery made seven changes and kept the majority of his first choice team fit to face Forest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Opposite number Vitor Pereira made eight changes and his second string Forest won 3-1 at Chelsea to extend their unbeaten run to 10 games, their best streak in 10 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Villa have lost their two previous semi-finals, to<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/68978831\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Olympiacos in the Europa Conference League two years ago <\/a>and last season&#8217;s FA Cup semi to Crystal Palace, under Emery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That record and their recent form of three straight defeats will ensure a nervy atmosphere at Villa Park if the hosts fail to take control early.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8216;Emery will deflect or dismiss Villa concerns&#8217;published at 14:15 BST 14:15 BST Aston Villa v Nott&#8217;m Forest (0-1&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-653398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}