Unai Emery outlines Aston Villa's failure in defeat to Olympiacos

Villa have it all to do in Greece next week after an error-strewn performance in Thursday’s first leg.

Ayoub Al Kaabi’s hat-trick and a deflected Santiago Hezze strike put the Greek visitors in command of the tie, with Douglas Luiz missing a late penalty after the hosts had earlier fought from two goals down.

“We are frustrated and disappointed, we didn’t play well,” said Emery. “We didn’t have control of the game, we were playing so fast.

“In a lot of moments we needed to stop them and get in the box with more passes.

“They were attacking and they played the matches so open and the plan was completely different.

“They did well and we didn’t do like we planned. They are favourites and they deserved to win today. We will try to come back next week but they are favourites. We will play there trying to show something different.”

Morocco international Al Kaabi scored twice in the opening half-hour to stun Villa Park before the hosts came back to level through Ollie Watkins and Moussa Diaby.

But Luiz then handballed to concede the penalty which allowed Al Kaabi to complete his treble, with Hezze’s goal putting the Greek’s two ahead once more.

Luiz then endured further frustration when he put an 83rd minute penalty wide.

Emery later defended his decision to rest Pau Torres with Clement Lenglet, his replacement, experiencing a difficult night.

The Villa boss said: “We are playing a lot of matches and need players. We didn’t lose because he’s not playing. We lost because we didn’t play well.

“Now they are favourites and we will try to prepare the match.

“It completely changes the match for them but we have again a new opportunity to play better and control the game better than today. Maybe we can get confidence.”