Villa were beaten 4-2 by Olympiacos in last week's first leg and Emery knows that his players must perform well in a hostile Greek atmosphere in Thursday's (09.05.24) second leg as they bid to reach the final.

Emery told TNT Sports: "Before the first leg we were speaking about our possibilities to get to the final and now it’s clear after the first leg they are the favourites, and we accept now tomorrow is going to be very difficult here away.

"But of course we are ready to play tomorrow and to give our best performance.

"Everything starts in your mind and then with our capacity on the pitch. We have to respect them, but we’ve lost a little bit the respect of them because they won the first leg clearly.

"But tomorrow we’ll play with our personality and try to be stronger overall tactically in defence and in attack."

Villa were stunned by Olympiacos on home turf last week although the results did not come as such a surprise to Emery.

He said: "Not surprised, I know their coach and I appreciate him and he was always successful in Spain.

"I know more or less his teams and how they play. I watch the same style with his Olympiacos in the first leg but there were different circumstances in 90 minutes and they went more for them than us.

"They deserved to win but there were some strange circumstances in the 90 minutes. It was not normal.

"It’s not a surprise but it’s not normal for our performance during the year."