Unai Emery revealed his gratitude towards the Aston Villa fans who travelled to see their side beat Fenerbahce 1-0 in the Europa League.

Jadon Sancho’s header in the first half was enough to separate the two sides in Turkiye, with Villa also securing their place in the last 16 with the victory.

It was Emery’s 100th Europa League match in charge, becoming the first manager to hit that milestone (since 2009-10). His 100 games have been with Valencia (20), Sevilla (39), Arsenal (20), Villarreal (14) and Villa (seven).

It was also Emery's 20th major European win with Villa in just his 31st game with the club – only David Moyes with West Ham (28), Bill Nicholson with Spurs (29) and Bob Paisley at Liverpool (29) have reached 20 wins in fewer games with an English club.

Villa faced a hostile atmosphere at Fenerbahce, but Emery praised the impact of the away fans in what he believes was a deserved win.

“I’m thankful to our 2,000 supporters who were helping us here from Birmingham, Aston Villa supporters,” said Emery.

“In this stadium, how they are pushing here with the supporters, really huge atmosphere. How we were feeling, our supporters supporting us and helping us, it was really fantastic.

“And then we played the match with discipline. We were defensively, getting a huge responsibility to stop them, to avoid getting in our box creating chances and we did.

“We had a lot of transition to score one more, one goal like we did and more. And when we could dominate with the ball as well, we were really getting good positions on the field with the players.

“Every player did a really huge effort and playing in the commitment we need, fantastic in our gameplan.

“We suffered a little bit in the second half for 15 mins, they scored one goal and were refused by VAR. But it was circumstantial because overall we created more chances, we had another goal as well refused by VAR and we deserved to win.”