With this new format, the fact you are not playing home and away legs against the same team in the group stage but instead are facing different opposition and different challenges, it does make it a little bit easier to qualify for the next stage. Unai Emery is a fantastic manager, especially in Europe, and we have seen before how well he sets his teams up to compete in these competitions. The result they got against Bayern Munich was fantastic and in these one-off games, tactically, Aston Villa are so good at executing Emery's plan.
Original Source:
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