Aston Villa's Emery rues latest pen miss after shock loss

Aston Villa boss Unai Emery said his side have to become more clinical from the penalty spot after a shock Europa League defeat to Dutch minnows Go Ahead Eagles.

Emiliano Buendía missed a late spot-kick as Villa squandered an early lead to suffer a 2-1 humbling in Deventer.

Evann Guessand put them on course for a sixth successive win in all competitions, but they missed a host of chances to kill the game and came unstuck as goals from Mathis Suray and Mats Deijl either side of halftime gave Go Ahead a famous victory in one of the biggest games in their history.

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Buendía could have started a comeback but he blazed over from the spot in the 77th minute.

It was Villa's sixth missed penalty in the last 12 months, with Ollie Watkins missing against Bologna earlier this season, while they also lost a penalty shootout to Brentford in the Carabao Cup last month.

"Today the responsibility was for Emiliano Buendía," he said. "And normally he has good numbers shooting penalties, but he missed.

"Of course, something can happen, and we will try to get more clinical in the penalty shoot than the last penalties we have had.

"Our takers are clear. Buendía was today, [Jadon] Sancho, John McGinn, Morgan [Rogers] as well can shoot penalties.

"And, of course, Emiliano can repeat, but the idea is try to be so, so responsible about the decision and about the takers who can score."

Emery says the unexpected loss is par for the course, with Villa often coming unstuck on European away days over the last three seasons.

"And today showed us how difficult it is to play in Europe, to play away," he said.

"This is the reason I love football, because football has a lot of different ways to win. You can dominate, like we did, you have chances to score, but if we are conceding a few chances, maybe you can lose. And we did.

"Of course, I had a lot of experiences like today, and we have here with Aston Villa a lot of experiences like today.

"And sometimes we were performing very well and winning, and sometimes not winning. And this year, Feyenoord [on matchday two] we weren't playing very well.

"And today maybe we had more chances than them but we lost. And this is football. But we are very, very demanding, analysing deeply why you are better than the opponent but you are losing.

"But it's not a surprise for me. It's not a surprise, football is unpredictable."

Go Ahead are a provincial club based 60 miles east of Amsterdam who were playing in the Dutch second tier as recently as 2021.

They won the Dutch Cup last season but matchwinner Deijl explained the historic nature of the win.

"I think the last few years we've had a lot of big wins, the big one was, of course, the cup final," he said.

"I think everyone expected us to have a really hard time in Europe, and I don't think anyone expected from us to do it like this.

"So we're very happy. And of course, this might be the biggest win so far for this club here."

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