Champions League Contention

[Rigadon]

It's better than "doing a Fulham".

I prefer doing a Villa.

[Drummond]

Champions of mood rankings, you'll never sing that!

 

[OCD]

We drop points in games like Forest, Wolves, Bournemouth though. Would probably have been adding Brentford if it weren't for the red card too.

Everyone drops points in games like that, that's why it's rare to see more than about 35-40 points from away games for anyone.

There is an element in certain thinking that because we haven't played 17 and won 17 there's a problem.
Well we almost have at home!

I was countering a point about how we had played some of the most difficult away games we'll play all season. My point was that we tend to do well against the bigger sides (as shown in one of the posts above), but we're consistently struggling away to lower league, smaller clubs.

We've averaged over 2 points per game ever since Emery was appointed though so we should finish well second half of the season, it's just a question of how far that takes us and what the other clubs are able to do. Liverpool don't look like the Liverpool of a few years ago. Arsenal aren't scoring as freely as they did last season and look capable of dropping points that they shouldn't and Man City look like a side that's done the treble and doesn't have the hunger to win more trophies right now.

[darren woolley]

If we did get Champions League it would be great to hear the CL anthem at Villa Park after hearing it so much on TV it would raise the roof.

[LeeB]

Fulham could do a Leicester this season in terms of surprising cup wins, even better if it was also against Chelsea.

[eamonn]

Was thinking that I'd quite like Fulham to win the League Cup after reading that they've never won bugger-all (top-flight or cup-related).

[jwarry]

Looks like the media is finally catching up….. in The Times today

How title race is being reshaped by Villa’s ‘triangle of power’
Two trusty lieutenants, fluid tactics and an unlikely talisman have helped Unai Emery turn a struggling side into potential table-toppers within 14 months
 
Gregor Robertson

Aston Villa can scale the summit of the Premier League table with a home victory over Sheffield United on Friday night and, if Liverpool and Arsenal draw at Anfield on Saturday, Unai Emery’s side will top the tree at Christmas.
We have yet to reach the season’s midway point, of course, but wins against Manchester City and Arsenal this month not only secured a club-record 15 consecutive top-flight victories at home but also made those forecasting a Villa fadeaway finally sit up and take notice.
Ten of the last 14 teams to top the league on December 25 went on to win the Premier League title and, as it happens, Villa have the same number of points as Leicester City had at this stage of their 2015-16 title-winning campaign.

A more substantive statistic, perhaps, is the 25 league wins and 81 points Villa have collected during 2023, which makes them the second-best team in the country this calendar year behind the champions, City.
What, then, is possible for this transformed Villa team? And how, in the space of 14 months, have they climbed from the edge of the relegation zone to, whisper it, potential title challengers?

‘I’m not here to waste my time’
From the moment Emery first addressed his players in October 2022, informing them that they were
“responsible” for his predecessor Steven Gerrard’s dismissal, and took charge of his first game, a 3-1 win that marked Villa’s first triumph over Manchester United at Villa Park for 27 years, the former Arsenal manager’s impact was profound.

“I’m not here to waste my time,” he told a team languishing 17th in the Premier League, perched above the relegation zone by virtue of goal difference, who had won only four of the final 22 league games of Gerrard’s tenure — and the 52-year-old has been true to his word.

The manner of Emery’s exit from Arsenal in 2019, only 18 months after succeeding Arsène Wenger, when he was mocked for his shaky grasp of English and deemed incompatible with the demands of English football, undoubtedly left the Spaniard with an itch to scratch in the Premier League.

Despite that bruising episode, Emery’s body of work — with Valencia, whom the Spaniard steered to three consecutive Champions League qualifications; Sevilla, with whom he won three consecutive Europa Leagues; Paris Saint-Germain, with whom he won every domestic honour but failed to deliver the Champions League success the Qatari owners longed for; and Villarreal, whom he guided to the Champions League semi-final stage and another Europa League title — meant his appointment by Villa was something of a coup.

It did not take Villa’s players long to realise that too, as the detail of Emery’s coaching and tactical blueprint catapulted the team to a seventh-place finish last season, securing European football for the first time since 2010-11.

“He’s amazing,” John McGinn, the Villa captain who has been reborn under Emery, said. “For someone like me who’s not really experienced that style of play, the level of where your body shape is, your positioning . . . he doesn’t miss a trick.”

“He basically taught me that I know nothing about the position that I play,” the defender Tyrone Mings, who earned an England recall after Emery’s arrival, said. “He’s opened my eyes. He’s someone who takes great pride in everything he teaches.”

“He is a manager who lives football,” Douglas Luiz, who recently earned a Brazil recall, says of Emery. “He studies every day and he coaches hard every day. He demands a lot and this has helped us.”

Triangle of power
In many ways the level of power and influence Emery holds at Villa is antithetical to the convention in modern football that says a head coach is only one specialist among many at an elite club.
At Villa, however, the structure has been shaped in Emery’s image and the club’s co-owners, Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens — whose combined wealth is surpassed only by the owners of City, Newcastle United, Chelsea and Arsenal — have sanctioned the arrival of a raft of Emery loyalists, from the boardroom to the coaching staff to the scouting team.

Two appointments in particular — who along with Emery have been dubbed the “Triangle of Power” — underline his autonomy. Damian Vidagany, a former journalist who first worked with Emery as Valencia’s chief media officer 15 years ago, arrived as the head coach’s personal assistant but has since had his title upgraded to director of football operations. Monchi, the renowned sporting director and transfer guru alongside whom Emery won three Europa League titles with Sevilla, joined as president of football operations in June, ushering the previous sporting director, Johan Lange, towards the
exit door and a new role with Tottenham Hotspur.

Vidagany describes his role as “connecting everyone, from the owner to the academy to the kit manager”, which frees Monchi and Emery to recruit and coach the players. Vidagany also sits next to Emery in press conferences, occasionally helping with translation, which the former Arsenal manager recognised was important after struggling to articulate his thoughts in north London.

Monchi, who in 21 years with Sevilla built teams that won 11 trophies, believes everyone at the club is “completely aligned”. “Working together, in the same direction and with the same goals, is key to achieving any future success,” he said. Yet it is clear who is in charge. “What we need to do here in the club is to let Unai take the sporting decisions,” Vidagany told The Athletic in October. “Let Monchi choose the players with Unai, and all of us provide a strong structure — like a fortress.

“Unai, when he has the time and resources, will show he’s top level — if he hasn’t already. With Villa’s huge fanbase, and as long as we don’t become crazy or idiots to break this good atmosphere, we are on the
right track to have big success.”

Tactical versatility
In an era of stylistic certainties — think Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs, Roberto De Zerbi’s Brighton & Hove Albion, even Vincent Kompany’s Burnley — Villa are arguably the most tactically versatile team in the Premier League. One way of plotting a team’s style on the Premier League map is Opta’s team sequence graph — a spectrum on which City’s slow and intricate build-up play sits at one end, and Luton Town’s fast and direct play sits at the other — and Villa stand bang in the middle.

In many ways they are a team of contradictions. Out of possession, they play with an expertly drilled high defensive line that, as my colleague Hamzah Khalique-Loonat pointed out recently, has provoked more offsides than any other team this season; yet unlike Postecoglou’s Spurs, for example, they adapt to different opponents and circumstances. They are one of the most dangerous teams in transitions in the league; yet they press only in targeted areas, usually when their opponent engages the middle third. They have faced fewer shots than any team other than City and Arsenal; yet (largely because of the high-risk high line) the chances they do concede tend to be big ones.

In possession, they marry patient build-up play with rapier-quick, incisive passing sequences and attacks. The role of Villa’s “inverted wingers” — usually McGinn and one other, starting from a nominal 4-4-2 formation — is key. Their positioning between the lines poses a dilemma to opposing defenders and midfielders, creates central overloads, and they are the conduits through which attacks often end with Ollie Watkins, Moussa Diaby or Leon Bailey haring into the space behind opposition defences.

Yet around them, the team’s shape is constantly evolving. Sometimes Boubacar Kamara has dropped from midfield into a back three alongside Ezri Konsa and Pau Torres when Villa have the ball, which gives both full backs, Matty Cash and either Lucas Digne or Álex Moreno, licence to push high and wide to stretch the pitch. Sometimes the shape is lopsided, with Konsa a more conservative choice at right back, and either Digne or Moreno more advanced.

Yet it is the speed and precision with which Villa slice through
opponents that is this team’s calling card. The dominance they exerted over City this month underlined the challenges they pose for even the most vaunted opponents. City’s two shots on goal in Villa’s 1-0 win were the fewest of the seven-year Pep Guardiola era; the 22 Villa registered equalled the most a Guardiola team have faced in 535 league games as manager of City, Bayern Munich and Barcelona.

The talisman
Villa have signed seven players across two transfer windows since Emery’s arrival but, in truth, this is a transformation that owes everything to extracting more from the players at your disposal. It should be pointed out that, between the summer of 2018 and Emery’s arrival, Villa spent £250 million net on the likes of Emi Buendía, Emi Martínez, Luiz, Watkins and Bailey. This was a team, then, that was better than their league position suggested, but the improvement in the aforementioned players, and others, has been remarkable.
Arguably, though, no one better represents Emery’s revolution than Villa’s barrelling, all-action hero, “Super John McGinn”. Having laboured badly under Gerrard, the Villa captain is now playing the best football of his career. Much like Villa, McGinn plays with a level of intensity, industry, tactical discipline and — for want of a better word — relish, which quickens the pulse of the Villa faithful.

When the Scotland midfielder arrived from Hibernian for £2.7 million in 2018, nine months before he scored in the Championship play-off final win against Derby County at Wembley, McGinn described how his running gait — back hunched, bum out, elbows flailing — sometimes makes it look as though he is
“chasing a helicopter”.

McGinn may not be the most conventional of Premier League footballers, but the 29-year-old won the most duels and tackles of any player on the pitch against both Arsenal and City — scored the winner against the former and against the latter completed the most dribbles and passes into the final third as well as creating the most chances.

His ability to take the ball on the half-turn — thrusting out his ample backside to protect the ball — drive
forward or spread the play is a potent weapon Emery has been keen to utilise. “He can play right side, left side, inside, play as a centre midfielder and as a No 10 — he’s very important for us,” Emery has said.
His trademark goal celebration — hands cupped around his eyes to mimic wearing a pair of goggles — underlines a sense of humour and everyman status that is cherished at Villa Park. “My nephew [Jack] has poor eyesight and has to wear goggles to play football so I decided it would give him a bit of support to put the goggles on when I score,” McGinn said.

McGinn has banned talk of the “T-word” for now, yet with every passing week the notion that Villa are not part of this title race feels more improbable.

[Baldy]

Thanks jwarry, a great read.

[Martyn Smith]

Great article which doesn't patronisingly 'surprise package' us too much but concentrates on the reasons why we are doing so well. Only a passing mention of Leicester City as well, which makes a pleasant change

[Dogtanian]

I hate the old surprise package thing. It's only a real surprise if you've completely ignored the development of the club over the last five years and paid no attention to our overall form since the start of the year.

I also hate the 'Emery has transformed the club in 14 months' lines. Not wanting to take anything away from that great man, but he seems to have been the final piece in the puzzle, rather than someone who has single-handedly taken a failing club and solved all our problems.

It's just lazy, because the majority of people talking about football in the media pay as little attention as they can get away with to anything going on outside a few top clubs.

[curiousorange]

I don't really mind what people say about us. It's what the results say I'm interested in.

[Risso]

I hate the old surprise package thing. It's only a real surprise if you've completely ignored the development of the club over the last five years and paid no attention to our overall form since the start of the year.

I also hate the 'Emery has transformed the club in 14 months' lines. Not wanting to take anything away from that great man, but he seems to have been the final piece in the puzzle, rather than someone who has single-handedly taken a failing club and solved all our problems.

It's just lazy, because the majority of people talking about football in the media pay as little attention as they can get away with to anything going on outside a few top clubs.

I understand where you're coming from, but he HAS transformed the club. Under Smith and Gerrard we were struggling to shake off the feeling of a recently promoted club, happy with mid-table. Smith did a good job in stabilising us, and if nothing else Gerrard helped increase our public profile temporarily. But Emery has completely changed everything. He's taken a group of players that a lot of people were fed up with, and turned them into superstars. He's got Villa Park as the most difficult ground to get a result at in all of Europe and he's got us one game away from topping the table. All of this while suffering a fair few injuries as well.

He's transformed us from making up the numbers with the likes of Fulham and Brentford, to being taken seriously as a title contender with Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City. It is a surprise and frankly, nothing short of miraculous.

[Dogtanian]

I agree.

But, he has been able to do so because of the hard work that has gone on throughout the club over the last few years, the squad building, the academy, the training ground, etc. What I'm saying is that credit also needs to go to everyone involved in making the club ready for him to do his thing.

It's a bit like in F1. You can't just have a fast car or fast driver, you have to have both. Under Gerrard we were like an F1 car being driven by Maureen from Driving School.

[AV82EC]

Love that analogy.

[OCD]

There's still times where I read something like this (article and follow-on comments) and can't believe that it's us that's being talked about.

The work the owners have put in since they came in has laid the groundwork for what's happening. But Emery's supercharged it. He's basically averaged 2 points per game ever since he walked in when we were outside of the bottom 3 only on goal difference. And then maintained and even increased that average as the calendar year has gone on. Even with injuries to key players and managing the Sunday/Thursday/Sunday workload that had got the best of others.

Going from relegation fodder to title chasers in a year is amazing. I thought Champions League was a realistic goal for this season but it's been becoming worst case scenario over the last few weeks.