{"id":926749,"date":"2026-10-13T15:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/926749\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T15:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:06:11","slug":"champions-league-build-up-iraola-maresca-and-emery-news-conferences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/926749\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions League build-up: Iraola, Maresca and Emery news conferences"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A work in progresspublished at 15:15 BST<\/p>\n<p>15:15 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-fxb76l-Paragraph e14e9ror4\">Aston Villa v Fenerbahce (Wed, 20:00 BST)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-qs9kpv-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/d3c82677-75b9-4fb9-a5f5-c137c52727b8.jpg.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Laura Kenyon<br \/>BBC Final Score reporter<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Unai Emery\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/c5d26a05-1cd9-468c-bdf0-914359afd451.jpg.webp\"  width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The North Stand \u2013 currently closed for building work \u2013 has become a symbol of Aston Villa&#8217;s current position: under construction. Unai Emery&#8217;s side are a work in progress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The spine of the side that won the Europa League has since departed but there are signs of a new team beginning to build.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Villa are yet to replicate anywhere near the form we saw at times last season. But they display encouraging signs of renovation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Zion Suzuki \u2013 the first Japanese goalkeeper to play in the Champions League \u2013 was a commanding presence against Brentford.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Nicolas Jackson is showing signs he could be the prolific striker Villa fans hoped he would be when replacing Ollie Watkins and becoming a club record signing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The builders perched on the scaffolding, wearing hard hats and high-vis, had the best seat in the house to observe those performances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There is a long way to go. The new stand is far from finished but will the new-look Villa squad be closer to a final product come their next home game?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A work in progresspublished at 15:15 BST 15:15 BST Aston Villa v Fenerbahce (Wed, 20:00 BST) Laura KenyonBBC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":926750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-926749","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\/926749","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=926749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/926750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}