Unai Emery

[Smithy]

The Monday Night Club on R5 Live just spent half an hour discussing Emery's Villa. It's well worth a listen.

Warning : Contains Micah Richards guffawing.

It's funny, a couple of weeks ago people were talking about us but it felt like lip service, like they weren't really paying attention. But this week it feels like people have actually been paying attention. I saw someone doing predictions for the games this weekend and they said Villa should beat West Ham but you don't know which side will turn up, they could get hammered or be hammered. Hopefully we've turned the corner on that one, but it at least felt like someone who'd watched a couple of our games.

The opening day hammering at Newcastle gets mentioned a lot in the context of "not knowing which Villa will turn up".   People forget we lost our most influential central defender to a career threatening injury when it was 2-1.  I will go to my grave insisting that Newcastle result doesn't happen if Mings doesn't get that terrible injury.  If he tweaks a hamstring even, I think we're okay.  I genuinely think the players were affected by how bad it was.

And again, with the Liverpool loss, we again were only 1-0 down when we lost ANOTHER centre-half to injury.  Not as bad, thankfully, but not a shock that we lost a second goal (and any chance of a result) within 2 minutes of him going off.

The fact we're only 1 point outside the top four despite losing those two games for a combined -7 goal difference is pretty remarkable.

[PaulWinch again]

My view is he’s in the top 3 managers in the world, and I would not trade him for anyone.

Agree with the sentiment, and that's what Guillem Balagué seemed to be hinting at on R5 when asked if Emery was 'elite' manager. He also mentioned an interesting Emery anecdote involving Arteta.

On Sky Sports there’s also a video citing us as being in the mix for the title.

[AV84]

The opening day hammering at Newcastle gets mentioned a lot in the context of "not knowing which Villa will turn up".   People forget we lost our most influential central defender to a career threatening injury when it was 2-1.  I will go to my grave insisting that Newcastle result doesn't happen if Mings doesn't get that terrible injury.  If he tweaks a hamstring even, I think we're okay.  I genuinely think the players were affected by how bad it was.

And again, with the Liverpool loss, we again were only 1-0 down when we lost ANOTHER centre-half to injury.  Not as bad, thankfully, but not a shock that we lost a second goal (and any chance of a result) within 2 minutes of him going off.

The fact we're only 1 point outside the top four despite losing those two games for a combined -7 goal difference is pretty remarkable.

I think the idea that we might get hammered isn't accurate, as you point out, but it's probably still fair to say it's never clear which team will show up. Brighton to Wolves to West Ham, with Zrinjski in between,  were some varying levels of performance. 

[Ger Regan]

What length of contract did he sign when joining? Let's just give him a 10 year renewal now, shall we?

[Dave]

It's got the Saunders invincibility feel about it. We expect to win games now instead of fearing the worst.
It's going to take a very good team to take points off us at VP under Emery this season.

Counterpoint- no home clean sheet since August.

Emery out.

[rooboy316]

https://x.com/lmechegaray/status/1716361755297747219?s=46

I assumed he’d be thoughtful, articulate and profound in Spanish, in a way that we just can’t access him in English. What a shame for us, and humanity in general (well, the non Spanish speaking ones at least.)

[The Edge]

https://x.com/lmechegaray/status/1716361755297747219?s=46

I assumed he’d be thoughtful, articulate and profound in Spanish, in a way that we just can’t access him in English. What a shame for us, and humanity in general (well, the non Spanish speaking ones at least.)

That's great. He speaks such sense there. Now we know he's obsessed with having a connection with the fans I like him even more. Hopefully someone can come up with a song for him. That would be great. I love this because he's clearly intelligent and articulate in his native tongue and the morons who try and belittle him because his English is not always perfect need to go for a long walk on a short pier.

[SamTheMouse]

I'm going to write and ask him to adopt me.

[Somniloquism]

Well at least the answer to Risso is let him do the press conference in Spanish. I'm sure they would be less boring then.

[Risso]

Well at least the answer to Risso is let him do the press conference in Spanish. I'm sure they would be less boring then.

I think they'd be the same. His English is near perfect now, he just clearly doesn't like them and I think he doesn't like to give too much away. In any case, it doesn't matter, if he keeps on serving up the same football and results, he can literally have a tape recording just saying "demanding" a thousand times in a row for all I care.

[LeeB]

He could start talking of rolling wor boots up or whatever as long as get to see the shit I'm seeing now.

[pauliewalnuts]

His English is far from perfect. There's no shame in that.

People who have to work hard to speak a foreign language, being asked questions on the hoof by journalists on TV, especially, will always reach for stock phrases they've memorised / used several times before.

It's why you hear so many of them so frequently say things like "I'm so happy", "for sure" (F1 drivers for some reason use this all the time), "being demanding" (one of UE's preferred ones, obviously).

Anyway, like Risso said, who cares, the team clearly understand what he's after, and it is definitely getting through to them.

[john e]

Well at least the answer to Risso is let him do the press conference in Spanish. I'm sure they would be less boring then.

exigente

[Brend'Watkins]

There's no scratching of cheek, pulling of ear or searching for words.  I find his English speaking word salad interviews very endearing.."focus" "do dees things" " in a good moment" He may not be the most fluent English speaker but without doubt he is a brilliant communicator.

[Toronto Villa]

Happy Unai Emery Day everyone. Happiness restored.