Unai Emery

[Meanwood Villa]

VillaNews has a piece looking at the relative values of Prem first team values - based on Transfermarkt numbers.

Whilst not putting a huge amount of faith in Transfermarkt's actual values, the numbers are relative.

Team                   Squad value
Manchester City   €1.34bn
Chelsea                   €1.27bn
Arsenal              €1.17bn
Liverpool           €1.08bn
Tottenham           €849.9m
Manchester U     €818m
Brighton                   €665.4m
Newcastle             €642.9m
Aston Villa             €566.8m
Notts Forest                €472m

It shows how far we are behind the Greedy6  - were 9th on the list.

And what a great job Emery's doing getting to higher league positions compared to where we rank n terms of squad value.

Isn't the more accurate measure wage bill? In which case, we were estimated at 6th last season so performed to par.

https://fbref.com/en/comps/9/wages/Premier-League-Wages

[Villatillidie25]

Yeah think it’s thought of as a good correlation. Incidentally, Malen is on £140k / week?!?!

[eamonn]

Brighton, ahead of us? Come off it. I assume they have Wellbeck and Ferguson as being worth £100m between them...

[kippaxvilla2]

Ferguson is going to Roma.  £40m apparently.

[ROBBO]

My biggest concern is Emery, how long before PSR becomes an obstacle he can't overcome? it seems that as soon as you drop out of the top five the battle to hold on to your best players begins. I fear for Villa this season, not that we will be a relegation contender but that we will be a mid table side. If Emery gets frustrated with not being able to sign players because of the PSR threat he could walk away and we lose our best manager for decades,

[PaulWinch again]

Yeah I think that’s a realistic fear. In our favour is it appears to have basically been given the keys to mould the club (something as an aside that I’m always nervous about, even with a guy as great as Unai). But if we can’t keep evolving the squad I could see him getting frustrated.

[VancouverLion]

Yeah I think that’s a realistic fear. In our favour is it appears to have basically been given the keys to mould the club (something as an aside that I’m always nervous about, even with a guy as great at Unai). But if we can’t keep evolving the squad I could see him getting frustrated.

Agreed, but it's like being given the keys to a beautiful car, only to be told you can only drive it in first gear. Soon enough you'd become so frustrated that another car would become more appealing.

[Dave]

My biggest concern is Emery, how long before PSR becomes an obstacle he can't overcome? it seems that as soon as you drop out of the top five the battle to hold on to your best players begins. I fear for Villa this season, not that we will be a relegation contender but that we will be a mid table side. If Emery gets frustrated with not being able to sign players because of the PSR threat he could walk away and we lose our best manager for decades,

Presumably though he needs somewhere to walk to that doesn't have those problems.

His experience of clubs where you can spend anything you like (PSG) and of a shinier club than us but still trying to break into the level above (Arsenal) probably didn't give him a good feeling about that sort of club.

The arguably / definitely shinier jobs in England - Liverpool, Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City, Newcastle, Spurs? It's hard to see him at any of those. Inter if Chivu crashes? Bayern if Kompany does? Real and Barcelona seem as settled as they're likely to be, and while I imagine either would appeal he feels a bit too sensible for them to go for as their next manager.

He'll probably end up somewhere else at some point, but he's built a structure that he clearly thinks works and he's been around the block enough to time to know that you don't really get the freedom he has here at many other clubs.

As a controversial hot-take, I reckon that whenever he does leave it's because he's been sacked rather than him choosing to leave.

[Meanwood Villa]

You mean it's not going to last forever? :-(

Joking aside, I don't worry about him jumping ship too much. We're paying him a fortune and he's got massive power in the club. Notwithstanding that, post Saunders history teaches us that things start to go south around the 3/4 year mark even with popular and relatively successful managers so maybe it all falls apart over the next 18 months.

[N'ZMAV]

My biggest concern is Emery, how long before PSR becomes an obstacle he can't overcome? it seems that as soon as you drop out of the top five the battle to hold on to your best players begins. I fear for Villa this season, not that we will be a relegation contender but that we will be a mid table side. If Emery gets frustrated with not being able to sign players because of the PSR threat he could walk away and we lose our best manager for decades,

Presumably though he needs somewhere to walk to that doesn't have those problems.

His experience of clubs where you can spend anything you like (PSG) and of a shinier club than us but still trying to break into the level above (Arsenal) probably didn't give him a good feeling about that sort of club.

The arguably / definitely shinier jobs in England - Liverpool, Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City, Newcastle, Spurs? It's hard to see him at any of those. Inter if Chivu crashes? Bayern if Kompany does? Real and Barcelona seem as settled as they're likely to be, and while I imagine either would appeal he feels a bit too sensible for them to go for as their next manager.

He'll probably end up somewhere else at some point, but he's built a structure that he clearly thinks works and he's been around the block enough to time to know that you don't really get the freedom he has here at many other clubs.

As a controversial hot-take, I reckon that whenever he does leave it's because he's been sacked rather than him choosing to leave.

if Emery goes (sacked) then whoever makes that call will have to move them all on, Vidigany, Monchi etc - they're a package deal - which is unusual, usually, it's the manager and his assistants etc - but they'd be taking 'heads of' with them too.

[brontebilly]

A cup might be the focus this year. It does seem like we are waiting on one big sale before adding quality to the squad (swapping second choice keepers aside). We announced Tielemans on June 10th as one example of getting our business done early. Maatsen, 28th June, Onana, 22nd July.

Still 5 weeks off to the Newcastle game I guess but pre season already seems a bit of a write off for properly bedding in new players.

[Steve67]

Jesus, we are feeling a bit down aren’t we? We still have several weeks to go with the transfer market and I think we’ll get a couple of good players in. I think we may see some movement over the next couple of weeks. Have a bit of faith.

[Beard82]

We've kept the side together so far, and its a good squad.

I think well see maybe 1 player go, and then maybe 1 or 2 purchases (max 1 big one).  I also think well loan a couple of big players.  (Not convinced, but I coudl see Grealish or similar coming in)

[paul_e]

We've kept the side together so far, and its a good squad.

I think well see maybe 1 player go, and then maybe 1 or 2 purchases (max 1 big one).  I also think well loan a couple of big players.  (Not convinced, but I coudl see Grealish or similar coming in)

I've sort of just made a more complicated version of this post on the transfer thread and I agree.

[Hookeysmith]

Just watching a YT drone clip of VP and we do not even have a pitch yet so I am sure we have time