Unai Emery - our manager

[Footy-Vill]

Forgive me, Actually I'll just wait patiently. When people feel ready they can join that discussion as I very much hope that more will find it's the place to be. (Foresight)
I must be respectful to other posters choices in how they want to discuss the champions league and now title challenge as there is more and more talk of this . So excuse the over excuberance. Just a very exciting time. And last week was amazing.

Lets Go Villa Lets Go!

[Bad English]

I'll be happy if Emery gets us into the Champions League. He is capable of anything.

[paul_e]

Would people take a cup over champions league spot ?

4months ago I'd have said yes but now I think we're clearly on for top4 and I'd be massively disappointed if we don't make it. The cups are still a bit of a crap shoot so there's no chance I'd give up what we have now for it.

Of course, I think we're going to be right in the mix to win it in Europe.

[Bad English]

Would people take a cup over champions league spot ?

I will take the FA Cup, the league title and the Champions League spot. And the best badge trophy.

[Drummond]

It's in our hands. We could win three trophies.

[john e]

Would people take a cup over champions league spot ?

I will take the FA Cup, the league title and the Champions League spot. And the best badge trophy.

And the best looking team award ( both men & women)

[itbrvilla]

Would people take a cup over champions league spot ?

I will take the FA Cup, the league title and the Champions League spot. And the best badge trophy.

And the best looking team award ( both men & women)

I won't be happy until we have the most Twitter Aggregators (whatever that means).

[Percy McCarthy]

Great post Rory. I agree with you.

Yes excellent post

Say what you like about their provenance, but Man Utd, Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool, Spurs, Newcastle, us, Arsenal - there's 8 clubs who you'd expect to be playing CL football in any other country,

Yes, the Great 8.

[Percy McCarthy]

Some US PL coverage:

https://x.com/dantrum17/status/1734297466348937497?s=46&t=GdM6cpVxe5IloByNCRheWA

[Brazilian Villain]

And to add, I looked at the fixtures last night and if we carry on through Christmas, there's not much to worry about until April, by which point we could have a serious lead over other top 4/5 competitors.

I made the same point on another thread. We only play 3 of the top 7 teams before April, Newcastle and Spurs at home plus Yanited home and away. Liverpool's next 7 are Yanited (H), Arsenal (H), Burnley (A), Newcastle (H), Bournemouth (A), Chelsea (H), Arsenal (A) in addition to cup ties against West Ham and Arsenal. A challenging run with Salah away for AFCON as well, and they can't keep getting last minute winners forever.

[SaddVillan]

Here is a good article on Unai from The Athletic. I was going to cut & paste but it was a tad long...

https://archive.ph/Vh9G1

A few take-aways.

It's pretty obvious to me that NSWE are applying to Villa the principles and philosophy that made them billionaire:
• identify areas where we need to appoint staff
• recruit the best available and empower them
• invest in the right places at the right time - BMH upgrade to begin with, followed by Brookvale and now Villa Park; with the multi-club project a work in progress.
• Emery is an obsessive - but they've helped reduce his burden by bringing Monchi etc. on board to lighten the load.

The way they move players on is interesting:
"transparent and frank communication in dealings with players and agents, informing them via email and in meetings if they should seek another club. This summer" and telling them how much Villa want from a prospective buyer. This gives the player/agent autonomy to cut a deal with a new club and means Villa don't need to get involved -  all very clever.

And finally, one point that reminds me of 80-81, when we only used 14 players to won the title:

 “I was thinking about changing the starting XI, [for the Arsenal game]” he said, “but yesterday every player said they were perfect to play.”

Nobody wants to give up their place for fear of not getting back in. That's exactly what happened under Saunders... ...

[KevinGage]

Nothing that we don't already know but decent all the same. Disagree with the bit in bold, obv. And Carpethead is nowhere near the worst manager we had, even in the last 10 years. But the rest of it rings true:

Ken Early: Steven Gerrard unwittingly helped pave the way for Aston Villa’s rise under Unai Emery

Emery is going an excellent job, but the success and failure of players and coaches can hinge on factors over which they have no control

October 20th, 2022. Steven Gerrard’s Aston Villa travel to Craven Cottage to face Fulham in a Thursday evening game. They concede a penalty, score an own goal and have a man sent off in a 3-0 defeat. The travelling Villa fans sing “Steven Gerrard, get out of our club”.

“I’m a fighter and I will never, ever quit anything,” Gerrard says. He is sacked within the hour.
December 8th, 2023. Aston Villa beat title-chasers Arsenal to move to within two points of the top the Premier League. It is a club-record 15th home win in a row. Three nights earlier, Villa had inflicted one of the most resounding defeats in Pep Guardiola’s 15-year coaching career, dominating Manchester City as they have not been dominated for years. There is a strong argument that Unai Emery has Aston Villa playing the best football in their history.

To record a first Premier League victory over the club who sacked him four years ago would have been especially sweet for Emery. John McGinn mentioned afterwards that the coach had been personally “stung” by losing 2-4 to Arsenal at Villa Park in February. That was the last time Villa dropped any points at home.

McGinn was appointed club captain by Gerrard in summer 2022, but desperately struggled for form in that shapeless mess of a team. On Saturday he shared the credit for his match-winning goal with Villa’s back room staff who, he said, had seen him waste a similar opportunity in a recent Europa League game and advised him next time to spin and shoot.

The most extraordinary thing about Villa’s metamorphosis into title-contenders is that Emery is doing this with what is still largely Gerrard’s squad. Nine of the players who played in that appalling performance at Fulham last year also featured in the win against Arsenal. The only members of Saturday’s starting XI who were not already at the club under Gerrard were centre back Pau Torres and midfielder Youri Tielemans.

You might say it is not that surprising that the squad is performing better now that they are led by a real coach who will manage his 1,000th game later this season, rather than a big-name ex-player who went into management because it was the only way to stay in the game.

But you will search in vain for past examples of coaches who have made an impact like Emery’s at Villa. He has won 31 of his first 50 matches there. Guardiola won 29 of his first 50 at Manchester City, and he was taking over at a club that had been champions in two of the previous four seasons. Villa had won just 12 of the 50 matches preceding Emery’s arrival in November 2022.

This level of success is also new for Emery. His win rate of 62.5 per cent is by far the highest in Villa history (no previous Villa manager has hit 50 per cent), but it’s also well above his own performance in previous jobs (leaving aside the 75 per cent he recorded at PSG, who are so much richer than their domestic competition the statistics are hardly relevant).

In his time at Arsenal in 2018-19, Emery never succeeded in instilling the kind of organisation and spirit Villa are “transmitting”, to use a favourite word of the coach. Why have these players (and supporters) responded to his message and methods in a way Arsenal’s never did?

It shows again how the success and failure of players and coaches is contingent on many factors over which they have no control.

When Emery arrived at Arsenal he was replacing Arsène Wenger, a legendary figure in the history of the club who had grown stale in the job. Most Arsenal fans agreed it was time for a change, but many of them still loved Wenger all the same. His sacking made them feel sad. Emery, lacking Wenger’s fame, charm and charisma, seemed an anticlimactic figure, his appointment symbolic of the club’s decline. When results nosedived in the second season, everyone turned on him.

At Villa Gerrard had done a better job of preparing the ground for Emery, by being the worst manager of the club that anyone could remember.

His sacking remains memorable for the sheer scale of celebration that greeted it. There is no single reason why he had become so unpopular. As ever when a manager is dismissed, there had been bad results and questionable tactics. There had been pointless feuds, like the stripping of the captaincy from Tyrone Mings. There had been poor recruitment, like Philippe Coutinho proving to be as bad a signing for Villa as he was for Barcelona. There had been ill-judged comments, like his statement that “[Graham Potter’s Chelsea] should be coming to Villa Park and wiping the floor with us” (they did).

The mistakes were compounded by the nagging sense that for Gerrard, it was all about him – that he was preoccupied by his own feelings and his own image to the extent that it didn’t really occur to him to consider things from the point of view of the team.

His comments after that Fulham game are typical: “We were excellent at the weekend, I gave them a lot of praise ... but it’s very difficult to praise them on tonight’s performance.” It sounded as though he thought of the team as an altogether separate entity from their manager, whose job was simply to dispense praise or criticism according to what was dictated by the scoreboard. He left behind a demoralised club and a group of players who had been so derided that some of them were seriously fearing for their futures in the game.

Into this scene walked Emery, offering clarity, competence and conviction. This time he found a willing audience. Where Arsenal’s stars were bored by his long video analysis sessions and repetitive, the Villa players grasped eagerly at anything that promised the prospect of improvement. Now the defence that looked a rabble last year is running the best offside trap in top-level football.

According to McGinn, the mantra Emery drills into them every day is “stay humble”. The Villa players have easily internalised a message a lot of footballers struggle with. A year as the Gerrard team taught them more about humility than they’d ever hoped to learn.

[Garyth]

Nobody wants to give up their place for fear of not getting back in. That's exactly what happened under Saunders... ...

I agree, but I also get the feeling that there’s a lot of buy-in that changes made for tactical reasons are not necessarily a reflection on individuals - it’s just as likely someone will play again the next week against a different opponent.

[RamboandBruno]

Nobody wants to give up their place for fear of not getting back in. That's exactly what happened under Saunders... ...

I agree, but I also get the feeling that there’s a lot of buy-in that changes made for tactical reasons are not necessarily a reflection on individuals - it’s just as likely someone will play again the next week against a different opponent.

I think the euro games help with this also. Although a strain on regulars physically, most of the squad/fringe players know they are going to get game time.

[chrisw1]

Nobody wants to give up their place for fear of not getting back in. That's exactly what happened under Saunders... ...

I agree, but I also get the feeling that there’s a lot of buy-in that changes made for tactical reasons are not necessarily a reflection on individuals - it’s just as likely someone will play again the next week against a different opponent.

I think Bailey's fantastic attitude this season is a perfect example.  He was starting from the bench most games but making a difference when he came on.  I think this rubbed off on Tielemans who also has also grown into the season.  They are now two of our best players and linked up brilliantly for one of the best team goals I've ever seen at VP on Saturday. 

It now looks like Carlos may get a run and whilst the idea of no Konsa horrifies me (his recovery pace and tackling seems vital), it is an opportunity to reduce his load for a period.