Unai Emery

[PaulWinch again]

He’s just a master.

[Chip Butty 111]

What Unai has done since his arrival is remarkable.
We have an identity
We play some lovely attacking football.
We don't know when we are beaten
The players respect him and clearly buy into his methods
Genuinely good sides dominate teams away from home, and we are now starting to do this
...after the Gerrard sacking following the Fulham game,  I wouldn't have believed it possible to be where we are now, the guy is a genius..

[Toronto Villa]

Not only is beyond outstanding at his job he’s just the most respectful and dignified of men. Class personified and he’s influenced that across the entire the club. We don’t have any idiots playing for us. Ok we had an issue or two with Duran but even he’s bought into it. So many really excellent role models led by the ultimate role model.

[Tuscans]

Swiss journos being Swiss....Boo fuckin Hoo.

[Somniloquism]

There is a stat on the BBC website on managers with most wins in Europe since 2008/09

Emery is third on 89 behind Mourinho on 91 and Guardiola on 102.

[PeterWithesShin]

'The guy is a genius' – Emery helps Aston Villa's dreams come true

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cy0gl4pz1rjo

[edgysatsuma89]

Swiss journos being Swiss....Boo fuckin Hoo.

I like seeing him get a little narked with a journo. Nice man, but he clearly has so much fire.

[Rory]

Best manager in the world, and a true gentleman.

I only hope somebody at the club is impressing upon him just how much we love him.

[Percy McCarthy]

Unai Emery now has 38 Premier League wins as Aston Villa manager, overtaking David O'Leary (37), doing so in 47 less games.

Emery is now tied with Ron Atkinson on 38 wins as Aston Villa manager, doing so in 31 less games.

A season of wins in just under two seasons is tremendous going. Especially when most of the players were relegation fodder when he first started, and then his second season he lost two key players early on.

His team against Man U for his first game wasn't relegation fodder at all, in fact it's hardly changed:

E Martinez
M Cash   
E Konsa   
T Mings
L Digne   
Douglas Luiz
E Buendia   
L Bailey
L Dendoncker
J Ramsey
O Watkins

Kamara and McGinn on the bench, too.

There was a sort of Gerrard-apologist narrative afoot at the time though. The phrase I remember vividly was ‘they’re just not top 6 players’. I think it was Ads mainly. Ice cold take on a par with the post-Spurs ‘we’ve fucked it’ meltdown last season.

[algy]

Unai Emery now has 38 Premier League wins as Aston Villa manager, overtaking David O'Leary (37), doing so in 47 less games.

Emery is now tied with Ron Atkinson on 38 wins as Aston Villa manager, doing so in 31 less games.

A season of wins in just under two seasons is tremendous going. Especially when most of the players were relegation fodder when he first started, and then his second season he lost two key players early on.

His team against Man U for his first game wasn't relegation fodder at all, in fact it's hardly changed:

E Martinez
M Cash   
E Konsa   
T Mings
L Digne   
Douglas Luiz
E Buendia   
L Bailey
L Dendoncker
J Ramsey
O Watkins

Kamara and McGinn on the bench, too.

There was a sort of Gerrard-apologist narrative afoot at the time though. The phrase I remember vividly was ‘they’re just not top 6 players’. I think it was Ads mainly. Ice cold take on a par with the post-Spurs ‘we’ve fucked it’ meltdown last season.

Yep, can remember there being some people saying that the squad had peaked at mid table under Smith and in reality that squad were relegation fodder. I also remember thinking, maybe posting, at the time that in thought their level was more Champions Leag….

Well, the second part is a lie. I thought they were good enough to challenge for Europe, sort of 8th/9th kind of place. Never in my wildest fever dreams would I have thought we would have a squad who could qualify for Europe *that season* after the Fulham game, or finish top 4 the next season and get to a European semi-final whilst they were at it.

I reckon this Emery chap is a half decent manager and we ought to stick with him at least until the end of the season.

[FatSam]

There was a sort of Gerrard-apologist narrative afoot at the time though. The phrase I remember vividly was ‘they’re just not top 6 players’.

That’s right. Gerrard had been peddling the line that he’d been let down by the players. His regime was all about ‘we need better players’ and creating ‘moments of magic’. We supposedly needed to leverage his reputation in the game to sign more Coutinho type players. Shudder.

[manic-road]

There was a sort of Gerrard-apologist narrative afoot at the time though. The phrase I remember vividly was ‘they’re just not top 6 players’.

That’s right. Gerrard had been peddling the line that he’d been let down by the players. His regime was all about ‘we need better players’ and creating ‘moments of magic’. We supposedly needed to leverage his reputation in the game to sign more Coutinho type players. Shudder.

The only quotes I can remember from Gerrard was saying what seemed to be after every defeat "we lack quality". What we lacked was a top quality coach.

[Percy McCarthy]

There was a sort of Gerrard-apologist narrative afoot at the time though. The phrase I remember vividly was ‘they’re just not top 6 players’.

That’s right. Gerrard had been peddling the line that he’d been let down by the players. His regime was all about ‘we need better players’ and creating ‘moments of magic’. We supposedly needed to leverage his reputation in the game to sign more Coutinho type players. Shudder.

The only quotes I can remember from Gerrard was saying what seemed to be after every defeat "we lack quality". What we lacked was a top quality coach.

We certainly lacked quality at the start of that season when he picked Watkins, Mings and Buendia on the bench.

[Drummond]

Emery is just different class. And he's ours. We're finally going to win something, I'm sure of it.

[chrisw1]

Odd questions really.  I didn't think the celebration was that bad and the time wasting was pretty minimal.