From The Athletic
FROM OLD TRAFFORD GHOSTS TO VILLA PARK EUPHORIA: INSIDE UNAI EMERY’S ASTON VILLA TRANSFORMATION
Compare the snapshot of the full-time whistle at Old Trafford in May to the one at Villa Park on Sunday, and the difference in mood and feeling could not have been more stark.
Six months earlier, Aston Villa had lost to Manchester United again, extending an already woeful record to just four wins in 56 matches. The latest one, though, may have been the most galling and consequential.
There were heated discussions in the dressing room at half-time and post-match, an inquest into Emiliano Martinez’s red card, and a sense of injustice, owing to Morgan Rogers’ perfectly fine goal not standing. Former sporting director Monchi received a letter from PGMOL technical director Howard Webb in the weeks after, but Villa’s fate had already been confirmed.
On Sunday, the ghosts of Old Trafford were banished. The scenes at full-time at Villa Park were instead euphoric amid an incredible transformation.
The 2-1 victory was Villa’s 10th win in a row across all competitions, with a seventh successive league win — the first time they have done so since February 1990 — moving them to third in the league and three points off the top. If Matty Cash said last week that he would only start thinking of a possible title challenge “after my Christmas dinner”, then, with no other games before he’ll be tucking into his turkey, he can start to ponder.
This act of restoration under Unai Emery has been stunning. The 2-0 defeat against United in May meant Villa missed out on Champions League qualification on goal difference, which had painful ramifications for what they could do in the summer. The uncertainty of most players’ futures heightened doubt.
“For the circumstances we had and the period in the transfer window, maybe the most punished team was Aston Villa,” Emery reflected earlier this month.
That one match in Manchester, where players admitted privately they did not turn up, hung over them for several months. Emery’s thousand-yard stare at the final whistle captured the mood.
A “nightmare summer”, ensued, with the hangover still infiltrating the early stages of this season. Players were angry, staff were low, and outside of the immediate first team bubble, there were concerns from other staff that Emery’s Villa might be on the way down the hill, rather than scaling new heights.
Emery admitted to a “negative atmosphere” as Villa went without a goal in the first four matches and without a win in their first five. He has around 15 Spanish staff within his football department — a physio was added in the summer — with very few able to truly put a finger on what the big issue was.
So the response was to double down and refine. Emery and his coaching staff’s belief in their work is unyielding; the solution was never to twist. For example, if Villa could produce better passes through the lines, then all the doubts surrounding Emery’s build-up system would stop. He is not one for folding — players knew the only way out was to work even harder.
People who work at Bodymoor Heath say they have little knowledge of Emery’s personal life. He is always at the training ground and always talking about football. His coaches must follow suit and they do — he will test them on goals and particular moments in random matches from years gone by when thinking and explaining his strategy for the next game. He will push his analysts for what they think about an opponent, including what their starting XI will be.
They arrive early and finish late, only leaving once Emery’s tasks are complete, which often means him ending the day watching analysis footage during a bike session in the gym.
Like the support within the hierarchy and from Villa’s fanbase, his faith in his players did not waver, though even he did not quite envisage such a turnaround.
“The team and the coach are doing a miracle,” one Villa employee tells The Athletic.
Another senior employee at a rival side described Emery as a “game-changing coach” for the level of club he is at. Villa’s success under him has been through consistency in results and performances, yet there have been notable factors behind the change this season.
While there were concerns that, with the second-oldest squad in the league, Villa were growing stagnant and missing impetus due to the lack of summer activity, Emery sensed differently. He felt experience worked in their favour. One player told The Athletic that Emery favours players over 30 because of their range of experiences, and that they do not tend to fluctuate in performance levels.
Seasoned players who have worked with Emery for more than three years are trained in seizing the critical passages in games. This is ingrained into them through three or four analysis sessions before every match and has been illustrated throughout the turnaround, with Villa stealing the big moments, be it through long-range strikes making the most of a lowly expected goals (xG) rate, or producing defensive interventions when under pressure.
Before United’s visit to the Midlands, 40 per cent of Villa’s goals had come from outside the box. Rogers’ two goals on Sunday were just inside, but served as further examples of Villa’s increasing catalogue of goal of the season contenders.
Villa figures state that long-range strikes are an outcome of concerted efforts from the coaching staff to find new ways to score. They are deliberately carving out space on the edge or outside the box for their cohort of exceptional ball-strikers, such as Youri Tielemans, John McGinn, and Rogers, who has scored six goals from distance in the previous 10 league matches. Rodri, the individual coach, works with specific players after training, focusing on finishing and technique.
Rogers epitomises the change in feeling better than any other. When he was enduring a tough patch earlier in the campaign, culminating in ironic cheers following a successful pass against Bologna, he confided in those close to him that his end product was well below his own standards. Interestingly, he also spoke of shooting more in the final third.
Defensively, Villa have grown more resolute. Tactical walkthroughs in training, where players stand in shape depending on where the ball is, are centred on being more compact between the lines. The full-backs have to remain narrow next to the central defenders, stopping balls through them and instead forcing opponents around.
Villa are not the most active side, so Emery recalibrated a structure to be built on blocking space through midfield, minimising turnovers and, in turn, reducing long, hard sprints backwards. In attack, the front four are reminded to combine and be explosive on transition.
In retrospect, the turning point, or week, was the start of October. Matches against Burnley, Fulham and Feyenoord — three favourable opponents — were integral in restoring confidence. Emery and staff felt that if they could win all three, players would play with more freedom, positively impacting decision-making and, therefore, the effectiveness of the overall structure.
Close observers of the dressing room state that togetherness has been fostered after a fractured window. Long-standing players remain very tight-knit — McGinn, Cash, Ollie Watkins and Ezri Konsa, for instance, are close and form the spine of the team. They also drive the levels in the dressing room.
McGinn took it upon himself to address players, insisting standards must improve. Unerring professionalism is vital to Emery — his staff want to know every aspect of a player’s life. McGinn follows these codes better than any other. He spent the summer wanting to become leaner, improving his agility and speed. He spent a few weeks in Arizona and in 45-degree heat doing as much.
Others, such as Victor Lindelof, have impressed team-mates with their physical condition and dedication on and off the field. The same applies to Lucas Digne — in the 1-0 win against Manchester City in October, the left-back played with 10 stitches, having sustained a cut a week earlier.
Villa have qualified for the Champions League once under Emery. While the ambition was to always get back there, belief was emboldened following the win against Arsenal earlier this month. A sign of the spirit, players who are currently not playing have spoken about targeting the final months of the campaign to make an impact and help Villa get over the line.
If the previous game against United started the rut, the final match before Christmas, if Villa needed any further indication, was the definitive end of it.
