PARIS: Unai Emery is heading back to the Europa League final at the expense of the club that fired him last season.

Emery’s Villarreal held out for a 0-0 draw on a nerve-jangling night at Arsenal in the second leg of their semi-final on Thursday, which was enough to secure a 2-1 aggregate win and set up a final against Manchester United on May 26 inGdansk, Poland in what will be the biggest night in their history.

Emery will be looking for his fourth Europa League title after winning three straight with Sevilla and then taking Arsenal to the final two years ago.

“Satisfaction, pride, happiness,” Emery said when asked how he was feeling after the match. “We made a very serious match, we all helped each other, we defended very well and sometimes with the possession we controlled the match.

“Today we are thinking to enjoy this moment and then we prepare the match against Manchester United. It will be very difficult but we deserve to play this final and we will show our supporters our best performance again. We have to go to the final and beat Manchester United.”

On his first return to the Emirates since being fired in November 2019, Emery calmly walked out of the tunnel so late that he nearly missed the kickoff in London.

He quickly shook his replacement Mikel Arteta’s hand and then watched as his new team held a toothless Arsenal at bay without ever looking seriously threatened.

For Arsenal, the failure to overturn the deficit means the Gunners will miss out on Champions League football for a fifth consecutive season with the pressure building on Emery’s successor Mikel Arteta. Sitting ninth in the Premier League, Arsenal are now on the verge of failing to qualify for European football for the first time in 26 years.

We are devastated, really disappointed,” said Arteta, who was dealt a blow in the warm-up when Swiss midfielder Granit Xhaka was injured and had to be replaced by full back Kieran Tierney.

But we congratulate Villarreal. I think we deserved to win the game but the details define these ties. The way we started in Villarreal wasn’t good enough.”

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang twice hit the post for Arsenal, while Emile Smith Rowe sliced a glorious chance wide early in the second-half.

“We had three big chances, they didn’t have anything but they are through,” added Arteta. “So many things happened to us, and so many players were just trying to compete not at their best.”

Villarreal were worthy winners over the two legs although they rode their luck on a couple of occasions when Arsenal skipper Aubameyang twice hit the post.

The Gabon striker thumped a volley against the upright in the 25th minute, although that was a rare Arsenal chance in a first half in which they showed an alarming lack of intensity considering the prize on offer.

Aubameyang then went even closer after the break when his header from Hector Bellerin’s cross hit the inside of the post and somehow did not spin across the line.

Smith-Rowe also lobbed the ball narrowly wide for the Gunners while Rob Holding saw a header flash past the post.

But the Spanish visitors were calm and composed in possession and might have put the tie to bed had Gerard Moreno made more of a glorious chance early in the second half instead of shooting straight at Arsenal goalkeeper Bernd Leno.

Villarreal’s players celebrated loudly at the final whistle after surviving five minutes of stoppage time.

Tonight I’m crying tears of emotion instead of disappointment,” said Villarreal youth product Pau Torres, now 24, who admitted crying when he watched the 2006 Champions League semi-final defeat by Arsenal. Villarreal have missed out on so many semi-final chances to reach the final but now, finally, we’ve done it.”

While Villarreal reached a first European final, United reached a major final under manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer for the first time after an inspired goalkeeping performance by David de Gea ensured they were only beaten 3-2 by AS Roma in the second leg at the Stadio Olimpico which was enough to earn the English team an 8-5 aggregate win.

Solskjaer had lost his last four semi-finals during his Old Trafford reign and despite Thursday’s defeat in Rome, the Norwegian’s side progressed comfortably thanks to last week’s commanding 6-2 first leg win.

Not that he was in the mood for celebrating on Thursday.

“We played one very good half at Old Trafford that got us through,” he said. “The second half today was disappointing. Very, very poor. It could easily have been 8-6 to them. It was a strange game. We kept giving them the ball but luckily we have one of the best keepers in the world.”

Edinson Cavani fired home a powerful finish after 39 minutes to open the scoring, but Roma found the net twice in the space of three second-half minutes through Edin Dzeko and Bryan Cristante to turn the game on its head.

United had De Gea to thank for not going further behind as the Spaniard produced a string of superb saves.

Cavani headed the visitors level but 19-year-old debutant Nicola Zalewski’s shot took a big deflection off Alex Telles to beat De Gea as Roma secured the win on the night — but it was United who were left celebrating at the final whistle.

“It’s a great achievement to get to the final. We didn’t win the game and that’s disappointing but we did the hard work in the first leg,” United captain Harry Maguire told BT Sport. We started the game a bit edgy. It was end-to-end like basketball and we gave them too many chances in second half. Now we’ve got to go to the final and win it.”

Roma created enough clear-cut opportunities to pull off what would have been another remarkable comeback, three years ago after they recovered from 4-1 down against Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-finals, winning the second leg 3-0 at the Olimpico to advance.

But they couldn’t keep United at bay at the other end as Cavani showed his prowess as a finisher, opening the scoring by taking a touch from Fred’s pass and smashing in a shot from just outside the area.

Roma drew level in the 57th minute when Dzeko headed in from close range, and Paulo Fonseca’s side quickly completed the comeback when Cristante scored from the edge of the area three minutes later.

Cavani’s second goal, a header from Bruno Fernandes cross in the 68th, made it 2-2 and came as a relief for United because Roma were threatening to score at will.

“We ended the match thinking we could have made it to the final,” Roma coach Paulo Fonseca said.

Roma did not give up and Telles’ own goal offered some consolation to a team set to be coached next season by former United manager Jose Mourinho after they chose this week to part ways with Fonseca.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2021