Unai Emery

[Dogtanian]

McGinn was Bruce’s only redeeming feature

He did take us to within 90 mins of a return to the PL before McGinn joined. We would have gone straight back down, mind. He was a decent appointment at the time, exposing the fraud that was Ross McCormack was when our recovery from free fall started. Should take more credit for getting Grealish back on track too

Everyone likes Deano but it's small margins really. Gets us up via the playoffs (I'm not sure we played all that much better v Derby than we did v Fulham the previous year). Should that team in our first season back have been anywhere near a relegation battle to the final day? (Grealish, McGinn, Mings et al). Some disastrous signings like Jota and Drinkwater and tactically we were a rabble really for a lot of that season.

Gerrard despite a good start always seemed a very bad mistake and so it proved. It's been a mad 7 years since McCormack-gate!

Sigh.

We came up via play offs and had no time to plan. Not knowing if Grealish would stay. Not knowing for sure if McGinn, Mings, AEG and Taylor could hack it at this level over a season.

Signed Engels and Konsa and Trezeguet and I can't recall if we thought any of them were yet of the standard required.

Star signing Wesley and Experienced GK Heaton were crocked in the same game. We had no choice but to pad out the squad who else was available other than Raina and Drinkbollocks?

Oh and then the season was on hold for what 10-12 weeks after we got mauled.

We finished the season strong and stayed up ahead of 2 teams who has been in top league for longer than us.

Yeah, it was a hard task, definitely.

The thing with the play-off finals is that we never looked like losing to Derby, and never looked like beating Fulham.

[Risso]

Talking of Engels, you can take the lad out of Villa Park, but you can't take Villa Park out of the lad. He's missed the last two years with an achilles injury.

[Smithy]

McGinn was Bruce’s only redeeming feature

He did take us to within 90 mins of a return to the PL before McGinn joined. We would have gone straight back down, mind. He was a decent appointment at the time, exposing the fraud that was Ross McCormack was when our recovery from free fall started. Should take more credit for getting Grealish back on track too

Everyone likes Deano but it's small margins really. Gets us up via the playoffs (I'm not sure we played all that much better v Derby than we did v Fulham the previous year). Should that team in our first season back have been anywhere near a relegation battle to the final day? (Grealish, McGinn, Mings et al). Some disastrous signings like Jota and Drinkwater and tactically we were a rabble really for a lot of that season.

Gerrard despite a good start always seemed a very bad mistake and so it proved. It's been a mad 7 years since McCormack-gate!

Sigh.

We came up via play offs and had no time to plan. Not knowing if Grealish would stay. Not knowing for sure if McGinn, Mings, AEG and Taylor could hack it at this level over a season.

Signed Engels and Konsa and Trezeguet and I can't recall if we thought any of them were yet of the standard required.

Star signing Wesley and Experienced GK Heaton were crocked in the same game. We had no choice but to pad out the squad who else was available other than Raina and Drinkbollocks?

Oh and then the season was on hold for what 10-12 weeks after we got mauled.

We finished the season strong and stayed up ahead of 2 teams who has been in top league for longer than us.

Yeah, it was a hard task, definitely.

The thing with the play-off finals is that we never looked like losing to Derby, and never looked like beating Fulham.

If anything, I think the 10-12 week break we had due to Covid is part of the evidence of why Deano did such a good job.  We were like a side transformed after that break.  Our form went from almost relegation certainties, to comfortably mid-table (which we carried on into the following season).  That doesn't happen unless that extra time is given to a coach who is good at what he does.

I think he left at the right time, but considering he was with us for three years in which we went from a 15th placed Championship team, to a side that finished 11th in the Premier League, he did brilliantly. Yes, we weren't in a great place when he left, but I think the whole Grealish-leaving thing would have been difficult for any side so reliant on its best player.

When this period of our history is written, Deano's part in our rise will prove to have been a very important one.

[RamboandBruno]

Talking of Engels, you can take the lad out of Villa Park, but you can't take Villa Park out of the lad. He's missed the last two years with an achilles injury.

The curse!!
Its funny isn’t it, how of the hundreds of players ive seen come and go at Villa over the last 40 years, only really a percentage really stick in the mind for very specific reasons. Most because they were really good or really bad, but some mainly for incidents.
I was only a kid, so for me the main reason Steve McMahon sticks in my mind as a Villa player is because Noel Blake headbutted him.

I’ll never forget Engels, despite the fact he was only here a year and very limited player. When that ball went under his foot in the last minute against spurs for Son to run through and score, i went home and thought we were gone, relegated.

[Risso]

Talking of Engels, you can take the lad out of Villa Park, but you can't take Villa Park out of the lad. He's missed the last two years with an achilles injury.

The curse!!
Its funny isn’t it, how of the hundreds of players ive seen come and go at Villa over the last 40 years, only really a percentage really stick in the mind for very specific reasons. Most because they were really good or really bad, but some mainly for incidents.
I was only a kid, so for me the main reason Steve McMahon sticks in my mind as a Villa player is because Noel Blake headbutted him.

I’ll never forgot Engels, despite the fact he was only here a year and very limited player. When that ball went under his foot in the last minute against spurs for Son to run through and score, i went home and thought we were gone, relegated.

We'd actually played quite well that game as well.

Even though we lost, I thought he looked superb on his debut away at Spurs in our first game back. Turned out he was muck, though.

[PeterWithe]

Steve Bruce was summed up across a couple of transfer windows when he complained of not having a midfielder capable of carrying the ball forward. So he signed Barni, Connor Houlihane (sp?) and Lansbury for loads of money, none of which could do that, whilst regularly leaving Grealish, possibly the best at it since Gascoigne, either on the bench or in the stand.

The game left him far, far behind.

[dcdavecollett]

Any assessment of our first year back in the Prem should acknowledge that up to 25 professionally-contracted players left the club in the summer of 2019 for various reasons.

No wonder our transfer budget was spread so thin!!

[Percy McCarthy]

Talking of Engels, you can take the lad out of Villa Park, but you can't take Villa Park out of the lad. He's missed the last two years with an achilles injury.

The curse!!
Its funny isn’t it, how of the hundreds of players ive seen come and go at Villa over the last 40 years, only really a percentage really stick in the mind for very specific reasons. Most because they were really good or really bad, but some mainly for incidents.
I was only a kid, so for me the main reason Steve McMahon sticks in my mind as a Villa player is because Noel Blake headbutted him.

I’ll never forget Engels, despite the fact he was only here a year and very limited player. When that ball went under his foot in the last minute against spurs for Son to run through and score, i went home and thought we were gone, relegated.

I watched that one in a pub in Dublin. It was a decent day and night out apart from the football bit.

[Toronto Villa]

As we watch these international tournaments it reminds me yet again of the immense work done by Unai with our squad. We only have three absolute nailed on starters at international level right now in Emi, McGinn and Olsen. Tielemans has just really reestablished himself but he doesn’t always start, and Leon is taking time away from Jamaica. After that the others; Cash, Ollie, Konsa, Kamara, Diaby etc. are squad players at best. For Unai to take this group, get us to 4th and CL football is an incredible achievement.

[PaulWinch again]

As we watch these international tournaments it reminds me yet again of the immense work done by Unai with our squad. We only have three absolute nailed on starters at international level right now in Emi, McGinn and Olsen. Tielemans has just really reestablished himself but he doesn’t always start, and Leon is taking time away from Jamaica. After that the others; Cash, Ollie, Konsa, Kamara, Diaby etc. are squad players at best. For Unai to take this group, get us to 4th and CL football is an incredible achievement.

Agree overall, obviously Unai has done an incredible job. But for some of those - Ollie, Kamara, and Diaby come to mind - they’re exceptional players, particularly the first two, but it just happens to be the case that their national teams have absolute elite players in their respective positions. It’s not that they’re not of the requisite quality to be top 4, albeit Unai has unlocked the potential in Ollie.

[Toronto Villa]

Agreed. My broader point is for us to take the next step, it will be to continue to develop those players into regular international starters but also bring in that exceptional talent. If you look at who are competing with at the top of the table and soon CL, they will be littered with brilliant players who are experienced at the top level for club and country. It’s a great journey for us to be on. But to sustain it we need to continue to invest in proven players. 

[Dick Edwards]

Our European Cup winning team won a pathetically low number of international caps between them.

[Monty]

Our European Cup winning team won a pathetically low number of international caps between them.

Pathetic for England.

[Dick Edwards]

Our European Cup winning team won a pathetically low number of international caps between them.

Pathetic for England.

The Scottish backbone of our team (McNaught, Evans and Bremner) only won a handful of caps between them. Ridiculous.

[Brazilian Villain]

Des Bremner got one cap (in 1976).