Emery: Valencia can only blame themselves

Unai Emery said Valencia only have themselves to blame for failing to protect a two-goal lead in Monday’s 3-3 draw with Osasuna.

Osasuna, without an away win in La Liga since February, took an unlikely point at the Mestalla despite trailing 3-1 with 30 minutes to play.

Miguel Flano made full advantage of a blunder by Valencia defender Cesar to trim the deficit on the hour, and Carlos Aranda smashed home from close range in the 87th minute.

Emery said his side paid the price for failing to fend off a wave of Osasuna attacks in the second half.

“It was a game with time for both sides on the ball, but in the second half we failed to keep away the Osasuna attacks and feared a draw,” Emery told AS after the match.

“We must be self-critical and should have been compact in order to assure the result in the second-half. This is how we lost the match.”

“We have a lot of work to do in order for situations like this to never happen again. We became fearful before I replaced (Ever) Banega, and we had lost the midfield battle.”

Osasuna coach Jose Camacho was delighted his side could snatch a point from Valencia, and said the visitors were unlucky not to have taken the other two as well.

“It was incomprehensible to see what happened to us in the first-half,” Camacho said.

“We had done a lot in the first half, whilst Valencia did little, but they went into the break with a two-goal lead.”

“We dominated in the second half. We were down with 10 minutes to go, and it was unfair. What we did was not give up.”

“We went for the win and did enough to try and score more goals, and we were able to claim something from the game.”