Unai Emery

[tomd2103]

Love the "I'm no Man Utd fan" caveat at the end, but wonder if you happen to support a team in Small Heath or Sandwell you clown.

I think the more important line to consider is the one after it, "tell me why you think I am wrong in the comments section".

Come on all you angry Villa fans, shower me with your blessed revenue-generating engagement.

Maybe so Dave,  but why are articles like that appearing in the local media?  I don't expect the local media to be cheerleaders for the clubs and expect them to take them.to task when needed (something they didn't do until it was too late during the dog days of the Lerner era), but to publish this kind of stuff on a regular basis is infuriating really.  And then I suppose they wonder why Birmingham is viewed the way it is on a national level.

I looked up the person who wrote the article as I'd not seen his name before and he's from Stoke, so no connection to Birmingham at all.

[Dave]

Love the "I'm no Man Utd fan" caveat at the end, but wonder if you happen to support a team in Small Heath or Sandwell you clown.

I think the more important line to consider is the one after it, "tell me why you think I am wrong in the comments section".

Come on all you angry Villa fans, shower me with your blessed revenue-generating engagement.

Maybe so Dave,  but why are articles like that appearing in the local media?

So that they get linked on places like Twitter and here so more outraged people click on their article. I clicked on it.

If someone had linked an "isn't Unai Emery lovely?" article I wouldn't have bothered.

[LeeB]

Engagement is the entire business model now.

[Risso]

I don't think he'd contemplate leaving any time soon.  Certainly not before he's delivered a trophy or two and possibly established us a Champions League team.

But given his career to date he's not squeamish about moving on and as much as we want a Ferguson or Wegner, he may well not see us as a final destination.  If he delivers for us he may want a crack at a 'giant club' whether that be Barca, RM or even Man U, much as we'd hate to see it.

Either way, if that time does come, I'm convinced he will have put us back as one of the best 5-6 clubs in England and I think we'd all have taken that when he joined.

Well he's already been at PSG, so maybe that's scratched that itch for him.

[Toronto Villa]

And why not Eddie Howe at Newcastle Won Fuck All United? Why are the media not linking him more strongly? How about Arteta? Man U is a bigger club than Arsenal. Maybe Ange-ball would walk out of Spurs yet I don’t see those lazy links. Surely Thomas Frank would punt Brentford?

[BC Villain]

Love the "I'm no Man Utd fan" caveat at the end, but wonder if you happen to support a team in Small Heath or Sandwell you clown.

I think the more important line to consider is the one after it, "tell me why you think I am wrong in the comments section".

Come on all you angry Villa fans, shower me with your blessed revenue-generating engagement.

Absolutely hate anything Reach do. All their click-bites are alarmist aimed at potentially the biggest audience.

And invariably the one most likely to have a meltdown and start throwing their toys out of the pram.

Emery has all but been given the keys to the safe here.  Not a chance he'd get that at the Theatre of Shit.

[LeeB]

And why not Eddie Howe at Newcastle Won Fuck All United? Why are the media not linking him more strongly? How about Arteta? Man U is a bigger club than Arsenal. Maybe Ange-ball would walk out of Spurs yet I don’t see those lazy links. Surely Thomas Frank would punt Brentford?

Would Rooney leave da bloos though?

[Risso]

We need stop getting fired up over Emery links. It’s natural lazy media twats are going to mention how now he’s not just the bloke who says “good ebening” and they have to give him credit and us albeit reluctantly. Emery isn’t just going to walk out of a job where he’s been hand picked by the owner and given the keys to the kingdom to build our club in his vision. From top to bottom. Look at all of the staff that he’s brought with him and who has left because of what he’s creating. And that’s even before you get to talk about what he’s done on the pitch, and the immense connection he’s built with the fans. He’s got literally everything he needs with us and I don’t see there is anything that Man U offers as a club, or environment that is better than what we have now. At every level we are on the way up and they are on their way down.

Exactly this. He doesn't strike me as the type to leave a job before he's achieved any of his aims. If he was just going to do it for the money, he'd be better going to Saudi Arabia.

He hardly left Villareal for the charms of the Balti pies either. I'm assuming we are paying him multiples of his Villareal salary and rightly so given what he has delivered. Think he also wanted to give the PL another crack to prove the end of his Arsenal spell was just an anomaly in a very solid career. He did turn down Newcastle so it wasn't just cash to be fair or any PL gig.

Emery walked into a club stuck in a post Jack Grealish purgatory and instantly transformed us. It's not as if he had a high quality CEO or DoF supporting him either, both Purslow and Lange were punted soon afterwards. There are a lot of parallels with the circus at Old Trafford currently but as others have said they haven't hit rock bottom yet.

I hope Emery uses this as leverage to get more budget in January to get Diaby like quality in. We are an attractive club now for players who want to improve. Man United are the polar opposite.

There's a huge difference between the ownership model at Old Trafford and Villa though. Emery came to work for Sawiris personally, and has been given the keys to the kingdom. Our owners made one or two missteps after taking over, but overall the trajectory is very much the right one, and Emery has surrounded himself with people he knows and trusts. Old Trafford is an absolute toxic cesspit, with owners who don't really want to be there, but who want too much money to be able to sell. They're saddled with enormous debt, a shit stadium and loads of stupidly expensive, really bad footballers. In addition theyhave a fanbase who are used to success but are now very much less successful than their neighbours across the city.

Anybody leaving a job like Emery's got to go there would be insane. Same for De Zerbi or Howe at Brighton and Newcastle.

[LeeB]

It's only going to become more of a mess up there if they sell a chunk off to the tax avoiding chemist.

[Chico Hamilton III]

Same media (and pundits) that reckoned Gerrard took the Villa job as a stepping stone towards getting the Liverpool gig. Nothing to see here.

[algy]

It strikes me that we might actually be the perfect club for him. There isn't the demand for instant results that he'd get elsewhere. We're big enough that we can compete at the top end, but have been starved of success for so long - 40 years since we last won multiple top-tier trophies, 120 since we did it for a sustained period of time - that we're willing to adapt to what he wants rather than expect it from what's already there.

I genuinely believe he's "the one". Felt for a long time that if we could actually start competing - properly competing - in the Champions League, we'd become a dominant force on the level that we've not seen since the 1890s.

[Rigadon]

All this is from the crap apparently spouted on talk sport isn’t it?  There was a time when Man Utd was a draw for nearly every player / manager.  But that time has gone.  Which is marvellous. 

[Risso]

I would imagine that if they do sack Ten Hag, they'd go for somebody relatively cheap to get hold of like Potter or *prays to the gods* Gareth Southgate.

[LeeB]

I would imagine that if they do sack Ten Hag, they'd go for somebody relatively cheap to get hold of like Potter or *prays to the gods* Gareth Southgate.

Now that would be the dream ticket

[ChicagoLion]

If they were under new ownership with some positive momentum behind them I’d be more worried. Currently the entire club is in a zombie-like state and I don’t think they’ve hit rock bottom yet either.

Agree, a new ownership, structure and investment, it might be something to worry about.
At this point, they are in total disarray.