Unai Emery - our manager

[BC Villain]

6/7 games in and he’s blotted his copybook, Jesus wept.

He absolutely has.  He's piled so much unnecessary pressure on himself for Friday to get a result.  I've just watched his post match interview and he doesn't even look that bothered about today's shambles

[Allan C]

Emery was badly at fault today, not for making changes, but for making so many changes, for failing to see the poor team performance he might get from his collective of fringe players and players out of form, and in turn for engendering a complacency and lethargy throughout the team which seeped its way through into the substitutions. Terribly disappointing, and I'm not as confident in this fella as I was yesterday.

Don’t forget, many on here were saying that these “fringe players” only needed “proper coaching” to take us into Europe. Here is the proof that that isn’t the case. An average player is an average player no matter who is coaching them

So what makes a good coach/manager? A blank chequebook?

I think Emery is a good coach, certainly the best we’ve had since god knows when. But he’ll need the raw ingredient to work with. He can’t however work miracles. We have too many players who are already at their limit and they’re at best average. Yes, using the cheque book to bring in the raw ingredient but also developing young players (I think releasing Archer on loan was a mistake) and I believe Emery will do both well.

He nearly has worked miracles with this team by winning away at Brighton and Spurs and at home to Man Utd. He’s had to use every ounce of his ability because as sure as night follows day, without new players this month this squad won’t keep it up. They simply aren’t good enough consistently and as we’ve seen today, he can’t exactly rely on squad depth to change it.

My point exactly

[LukeJames]

6/7 games in and he’s blotted his copybook, Jesus wept.

He absolutely has.  He's piled so much unnecessary pressure on himself for Friday to get a result.  I've just watched his post match interview and he doesn't even look that bothered about today's shambles

Even if we lose to Leeds what's going to happen other than a few throw away hyperbolic whopping lines on here? There's no pressure on him at all.

[Somniloquism]

6/7 games in and he’s blotted his copybook, Jesus wept.

Hmmm, yes. Supposedly a cup manager and played weakened players in two cups. People stating players should be rested seems to forget that all but three of our squad had a months rest only ending three weeks ago. We have had some bad cup results the last few years but this is the worst in a long time. Yes the players should have done better but it was the manager who picked those players, it was the managers "tactics" and it is the manager who has seen the catastrophe of Olsen playing it out short in the games we had during the world cup, and still decided to tell the players to play out from the back.

[gpbarr]

He's undone nothing as far as I am concerned. I have watched us underachieve for the past 25 years and I look at his Cv and drool. Our players, none of whom he signed btw, went out and bottled it against a lower league team at home. It's on them, not him.

If Emery doesn't get time at villa I guarantee we won't be getting in anybody with a better CV. We have to stick with this through thick and thin if we want to end the drought.

Careful - common sense and logic isn’t valued here 😀.

The flailing and panic on here tonight is sort of amusing really. Thank god fans don’t run football

[martyn ellis]

I'm afraid it was one of those 'We hammered them one-nil games for 87 minutes. We were never in any trouble (except for their off-side goal), had almost 80% of the ball and just missed out on the finishing (again). Then game the two 'howlers'. I was surprised he hooked Sanson, who was the best player on the pitch, but I guess that was to give Ramsey some match time - didn't work. Worse, we lost Cash and Agustinsson to what looked like bad injuries. No excuses, but sometimes it just doesn't go for you.

[martyn ellis]

Sorry wrong thread - see match thread.

[Nii Lamptey]

Today's game isn't where we find out what kind of manager Emery is, it will be the starting lineup and performance against Leeds on Friday, along with the ins and outs of this transfer window.

I very much doubt that a manager of his stature won't put up with what we witnessed at Villa Park this evening.

[pauliewalnuts]

Hammered them so much we managed three shots on target.

[Toronto Villa]

I don’t even recall the two other shots on target.

[Risso]

Hammered them so much we managed three shots on target.

And they had the ball in the net from a marginal offside, and narrowly skimmed the bar with that great shot from their left wing.

[eamonn]

Coutinho stung the keepers' hands with his only non-wayward shot and Chambers was unlucky with the stabbed effort at the back stick in the second half.

I dont think Stevenage had an effort on our goal in the second half. Yes, they're plucky fourth division darlings, but they were jammy with how they won.

[coreyfeldman]

There's not a single manager of a top tier team in Europe who will put out a full starting 11 against 4th tier opposition in the first round, not one.
Those players should have beaten stevenage, it's on them imo.
I think so many of those 11 are either not good enough, or weak mentally, and it showed. Cash is shit, the 2 cbs are fucking embarrassingly crap, doug is so inconsistent its infuriating, coutinho is a wanker, buendia is daft as a brush, Bailey has the weakest constitution known to man, watkins isn't far behind him (2 goals this week Wakins has attempted to 'block' by trying not to get hit by the ball, hes pathetic)

I would have liked to see some younger players getting a look in but obviously emery thought that too much of a risk (as most of us probably would).

The cup defeats are obviously irritating for different reasons, but emery has a squad and it's totally normal for managers to use the squad for Cup matches. It just highlights the need for better players, and for recruitment to be more consistent.

[SoccerHQ]

At least he was quoting in post match press conference as saying perhaps some in the squad "don't have the ambition."

Now if this was coming from Bruce or McLeish you'd just dismiss it as playing to the gallery but we're talking about a manager who has won domestic and european titles so he can spot the DNA of a squad.

Big problem to me is we get a surprise/big win and then coast for weeks on it.

Last season we won at Man.United for first time in over a decade. Brilliant but not so good when we then proceed to lose our next five and get the most popular manager for a long time the sack.

Very concerning to me we go from outplaying at top 6 team on their own turf to being terrible against a bottom 3 team three days later. And then with a few changes then lose at home to a league 2 team a few days after that.

Poor results and performances will happen for every team in a season but we shouldn't have a wild extreme of performances like that in just a single week.

If we're serious in future about qualifying for europe/actually win something we're going to need a much more sound footing from the regulars most weeks. Emery's as qualified as any manager we've had since 2006 to achieve that so hopefully he can start this month.

[Olof's Beard]

6/7 games in and he’s blotted his copybook, Jesus wept.

He absolutely has.  He's piled so much unnecessary pressure on himself for Friday to get a result.  I've just watched his post match interview and he doesn't even look that bothered about today's shambles

He looked bothered to me. Rage concealed by the quirks of his non-native accent and manner. He's pissed off.