Unai Emery

[adrenachrome]

I’d hate to have to watch villa play every week , going on today’s performance. Constant time wasting, feigning injury and cynical fouling. The last team that did that at the Amex was Wolves. Must be something they are taught in the Midlands.

Nailed on penalty not give to the Albion , fortunately Villa will not get that good fortune every week and will slip back down to the relegation zone soon.

I've posted much the same against several teams that we played at VP. The worst example was Gareth Southgate's Middlesborough. It's not great to watch as a home fan.

Nonetheless, we were the better team today, and deserved to win. I expect UA will fine tune the game management aspect fairly quickly.

[olaftab]

Who is UA?

[adrenachrome]

Who is UA?

UnAi. It's code.

[Rory]

Fuck 'em, losers.

A man talking sense. It's Brighton, who fucking cares?

[john e]

Our improvement is due to 2 things in equal measure imo
1 - Unia Emery coming
2 - Gerrard going

[Goldenballs]

Emery has used all 15 of the substitutions available to him so far.

[nigel]

OK people stop this fawning over Unai's first week. He did well against  manu at home and today. Got it badly wrong on Thursday. Let's see how things are towards end of Feb.

Did he get it that wrong on Thursday?
Not perfect, granted, but you can’t account for two blunders by Olsen. In fairness, he also made a couple of decent saves, too.
They scored from two blunders and another in dead time while we were chasing the game.
I think the game was much closer than what’s been said.

[PaulWinch again]

OK people stop this fawning over Unai's first week. He did well against  manu at home and today. Got it badly wrong on Thursday. Let's see how things are towards end of Feb.

I think people can be justifiably pleased. If he hadn’t hit the ground running there’s every chance we’d have been bottom of the league going into the World Cup.

[Smithy]

Emery has used all 15 of the substitutions available to him so far.

This is a really important point. The game these days really is 16 vs 16, and he's shown a willingness to use all of his subs to freshen things up when winning, and when chasing a game.  It won't always work, but in general, I'm much happier with managers who make bold decisions that don't always come off, than those who don't make them for fear of it not working.

I also love the fact that it keeps the opposition guessing. How many formations have we used since he arrived? I think it's four now? Three in one game.  That shit is a nightmare to manage against.

[Ger Regan]

I mean, if you can't feel excited about his start in the league, you might as well just give up. Imagine the sense of dread we would have been feeling going into a 6 week break with liverpool on the horizon, had the other fella still been in charge.

[Drummond]

I'd also like to add that so far, two league games in, he's managed to get a tune out of Bailey, Buendia and Ings who recently were being called a waste of money.

[bilsim]

I am genuinely unsure of how much of the new manager upswing is down to Emery being fantastic versus Gerrard being horrendous. Probably a bit of both.

[LeeB]

I'd also like to add that so far, two league games in, he's managed to get a tune out of Bailey, Buendia and Ings who recently were being called a waste of money.

After a week, the outlook is completely different for so many players. I think we have a core of Kamara, Luiz, Ramsey, Bailey and Buendia that have the ability to, and will become top level players under Emery.

[Brend'Watkins]

I am genuinely unsure of how much of the new manager upswing is down to Emery being fantastic versus Gerrard being horrendous. Probably a bit of both.

Gerrard not being manager certainly helps but our results in the last two league games are purely down to Emery. In just two weeks we’ve seen evidence of coaching, tactics, improved player performances and game management. It’s quite astonishing really.

[Risso]

I am genuinely unsure of how much of the new manager upswing is down to Emery being fantastic versus Gerrard being horrendous. Probably a bit of both.

Gerrard not being manager certainly helps but our results in the last two league games are purely down to Emery. In just two weeks we’ve seen evidence of coaching, tactics, improved player performances and game management. It’s quite astonishing really.

People were saying exactly the same things a year ago after the win against Brighton. A couple of weeks before that we'd been treated to the sight of Bailey trying one of Macphee's long throws with hilarious results, and bits of paper being handed round the pitch. I am a lot more confident under Emery though, but I still think we need 2 decent additions this January, and then the same in the summer, at least.