Unai Emery

[VillaTim]

One Unai Emery
There's only one...

[Accent Guy]

Do songs that are created here ever make it to the terraces?

Thankfully, no. 

[Smithy]

He's our Fergie.

He's just the best - everyone can see now what a brilliant manager he is.

I genuinely think it will have clubs reverting to the older style "let the manager have complete control" model and away from the "get a coach and let the Director of Football do the rest" model so many seem to have adopted in the last decade.

He's certainly proving that "his way" works, but it's up to them to gamble on whether, given a similar level of control, any other manager can replicate it.

[SaddVillan]

From The Athletic

Unai Emery says 'next dream' is to win a trophy with Aston Villa.

Unai Emery says his “next dream” is to win a trophy with Aston Villa after celebrating his two year anniversary at the club.

Emery was appointed on October 24, 2022, with Villa outside the relegation zone on goal difference. The subsequent transformation has been exceptional, having, as Emery described it, achieved his “first objective” in qualifying for Europe.

“Hopefully we will improve more and more,” said the Villa manager, speaking at his pre-match press conference ahead of the visit of Bournemouth.

“It’s been two years since I arrived here with the coaches. We were starting trying to be better in each moment. And we achieved some objectives quickly, but there is still a lot of work to do.

“It’s very important to work to keep it. This is the target with the players, coaches, owners and myself. But we have to enjoy what we are doing. I’ve enjoyed it a lot in the first two years.

“My first objective was to play in Europe. My second dream was to win a trophy and that’s what I have now. We are looking forward to continuing to improve.

“We are now playing a lot of matches and we are working more hours because we have to prepare more. But I can feel comfortable and confident.”

Villa will play their second home game inside five days following an impressive 2-0 victory against Bologna in the Champions League.

Emery admitted he has a concerted focus on ensuring his players remain at an intense level, having witnessed a drop-off in games following Champions League fixtures.

“We have to keep the objective and high standards we are setting,” said Emery. “This is the message to the players, the club and everybody. In other games after a Champions League game, I felt the players were tired and even a little less focused, now we must improve on everything.

“There were some doubts over the mentality I want when we played at Ipswich Town (a 2-2 draw). I told the players and I don’t want to repeat it. We always play to win and show it. We need to show hunger when we are on the field, playing each match.”

[Percy McCarthy]

I love what he said about SJM in today’s presser.

[Steve67]

He’s relentless in his drive. I can’t wait for each game to come as we have played some brilliant football. Even though we have a couple of players below par at the moment we still have quality elsewhere.  Having a full squad to pick from is also such a boost.

[Accent Guy]

Unai saying again that we aren't favourites for a top 7 finish. I love him but I do wish he'd stop with that nonsense.

[Richard E]

I love what he said about SJM in today’s presser.

Yes! We finally have a manager who doesn't settle for mediocrity and not only doesn’t just talk the talk about Villa being a big club, great stadium, tradition, blah, blah, blah but positively rejects doing so and just continues to strive to actually walk the walk of punching the weight we should have. Long may it continue.

[Astnor]

This from Emery: “There were some doubts over the mentality I want when we played at Ipswich Town (a 2-2 draw). I told the players and I don’t want to repeat it. We always play to win and show it. We need to show hunger when we are on the field, playing each match.”
Konsa was to blame for the 2-2 goal from Ipswich that cost us two points IMO (Carlos didnt do his best either) there might be that Emery let him sit out the match he did cause of it. I do read too much into it probably.

[AV82EC]

Unai saying again that we aren't favourites for a top 7 finish. I love him but I do wish he'd stop with that nonsense.

He’s not wrong though, if you go on wages, turnover etc etc there are 7 clubs with more than us who SHOULD be doing better than us. The fact they aren’t is down to him but I don’t mind him talking like this as we are the disrupters but with the forecast financial
Clout to be one of those 7 clubs if he keeps up the progress from the first 2 years. I think it’s a great reminder to the media that we’re batting above our supposed financial capabilities.

[andyh]

Plus he wants to win a trophy here, which I read as, he has just guaranteed us a trophy.

[Villan82]

When he was announced as Villa manager two years ago he said he wanted to play in Europe with Aston Villa and win a trophy with Aston Villa.

Two years later it's

Played in Europe with Aston Villa, twice, including Champions League
Won a trophy with Aston Villa, not yet.

It's no exaggeration to say that if he even won a League Cup this season he'd have achieved what he set out to achieve in less than three full calendar years

[not3bad]

Nice article about the current state of Aston Villa. https://www.fourfourtwo.com/opinion/unai-emery-has-turned-aston-villa-from-squad-of-personalities-into-a-team-with-personality

[KevinGage]

Whilst the positive articles are nice they generally seem to start the same way.

16th at the time he took over/ just outside the relegation zone on goal difference yada yada yada.

He's an exceptional manager, it goes without saying at this stage.

But he didn't inherit an Everton, Sheff U or Burnley-level of squad. Carpethead - and before him Dean Smith - were binned only when it looked like Europe would be a tall order for us despite substantial investment.

The quality of the squad then - even with its faults - was way better than 16th. Nas in particular wasn't going to sit on his hands and watch it turn to shit.

[Villan82]

Agree with that. We were 11th in our second season back and were looking to progress from there which cost both Deano and Carpet head their jobs. Many of the same players are still with us now.