Morgan Rogers hailed Aston Villa's "outstanding" performance after they earned a "deserved" 2-1 victory over Manchester City on Saturday.
The 22-year-old set-up Jhon Duran's opener before scoring their second as they inflicted a ninth defeat in 12 matches on City, who scored in stoppage time through Phil Foden.
Rogers both scored and assisted in a Premier League game for the first time; he is the youngest Villa player to do so against the reigning champions in the competition (22y 148d).
He had four of Villa's 11 shots, scoring with his only attempt on target, but also had the most touches in the opposition box (six), as well as creating two chances.
"We knew it was going to be difficult," he told TNT Sports. "They have not had results, but we knew they were going to come firing.
"We knew we needed a reaction in the same way as they did. To a man, I thought we were outstanding, and I think we deserved the win.
"I try to thrive in big games, and I want to show what I am about - it is nice to perform in the big games.
"It felt tougher than it probably looked. They make you work, and it is so demanding out of possession. We knew we had to be on it from start to finish. On the counter-attack we were good and that's probably why we won the game."
Villa have won consecutive home league games against City for the first time since April 1993, while it is also the first time since 1975-76 and 1976-77 that the Villans have defeated the reigning top-flight champions at home in consecutive seasons.
Emery was particularly impressed with Rogers' performance on Saturday, hailing the youngster’s impact.
"[Rogers] played fantastic, he is very important," Emery said to TNT Sports. "Through him, we are getting the performance back because he links strikers with midfielders and wingers.
"He was fantastic in the second half, connecting with strikers and scoring the goals. He has to add goals to his numbers, and today he was fantastic."
On the performance as a whole, he added: "Always we are trying to be positive. In some matches, we are maybe not performing as we want, but we perform.
"We are feeling strong. Here we played the first half very well. In the second half, we kept possession more and getting in the box to score the second goal, we imposed and dominated more."
