Did Emery rest Pau Torres and Diego Carlos for the game tonight?
Aston Villa appoint Unai Emery as manager
- Thread starter DavidDeSchmikes
- Start date
Yep.
Without Martinez we needed Pau in the backline badly and boy did we miss him.
Odd to go with Lenglet over Carlos aswell as he'd have been a better fit to deal with El Kaabi's movement.
Stumbling towards top 4 just now, very remiscent of his season at Arsenal where top 4 should have been wrapped up a while ago. Strange decision to juggle the team in the European game as well.
Exactly why I question him like I do.
Exactly why I question him like I do.
I mentioned this a few pages back that his teams have a habit of imploding. We looked favorites for top 4 and were in the EL final but somehow we ended up losing 4 out our last 7 games and lost to Chelsea 4-1 in EL.
They lost 4-2 to Olympiakos at home and are dropping too many points in the league. Luckily for him, Spur, Man Utd and Newcastle are awful this year.
I still think he's good manager and that he's done an amazing job for Villa, Sevilla and Valencia but I question if he's able to do the same at bigger clubs.
This makes no sense. He’s managing Villa? Unless you’ve reset your expectations and expect them to be higher!? They look a dead cert for 4th.
His teams have a habit of imploding? He's won more than your manager ever has and your manager's teams have imploded just as much.
I'd advise the Arsenal fans to wind their necks in a bit. Just because he didn't work out for you, seems odd to be desperate to be right it was him that was the problem.
My comment was in relation to the discussion last week that Emery is a manager that could get to a 90 point EPL season.
No-one said it was him that was the problem at Arsenal, what we were discussing in the last week or 2 was if he could have been the solution though. No-one said anything untoward, so harsh to tell folk to wind their neck in in a discussion.
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Reckon he’d have a shot with this City team. His issue is as soon as they had injuries the momentum died off, not disimilar to what’s happened everywhere this season with teams dropping points as soon as a couple of first team era have time out.
The discussion was more about if Emery could take a team, be it Arsenal, Utd or whatever, and compete against an established Liverpool with Klopp and City with Guardiola and get to the 90 point mark needed to really challenge for the league against them.
I doubted that he could based on his how he has performed league wise over his career. I didn't doubt his credentials in Europe where they are fantastic.
His league record isn’t that good but also not that bad... He is the only manager in their recent history to fail to win the league with Paris in a season he had them over the full season. (Pochettino has the excuse, of coming in mid-season). But he lost it to a very strong Monaco side (With the womderkid Mbappé).
His league record with Arsenal is really harder to judge. They were already failing to make top 4 in Wenge’s last season. And he put a good enough fight for it in 18/19… The 70 pts he got would be enough most other years… So far Villa fans shouldn’t have much to complain about.
His league record with Arsenal is really harder to judge. They were already failing to make top 4 in Wenge’s last season. And he put a good enough fight for it in 18/19… The 70 pts he got would be enough most other years… So far Villa fans shouldn’t have much to complain about.
Bar Brentford we've just about won the games we needed to. Today was terrible from back to front but sort of cancels out the fantastic performance at your place which I certainly wasn't expecting.
Spurs completely imploding defensively has helped of course.
I think if you look at our general form we've basically mirrored what Newcastle did last season. They didn't win many games in the run in but they had a comfortable buffer over Liverpool so it didn't really matter.
Don't really want to play this line but we also have lots of injuries aswell: Emi- Mings-Kamara-Ramsey-Tielemans-Zaniolo-Buendia not available today so that's plenty of high level midfielders. Then Rogers pulls up after 20 minutes and Bailey is also quite clearly playing through an injury the best he can currently given his lack of impact compared to most of the season.
It won't be 90 points needed once Pep fecks off. Will go down to low 80s I reckon especially as Liverpool will need to rebuild for a year or two.
Nah it won’t . Hasn’t been that way since the early nighties. In the last twenty years the only title wins with less than 86 points were Leicester in 2016 and United in 2011. You generally need over late eighties/nineties to win the league. Pep leaving won’t change that.
Honestly mate, I think Emery is a really good coach, I think he's done really well at Villa, I think it's a club that suits Emery and I think that Emery suits the club.
I hope he keeps doing well there, and it goes without saying I hope he gets top 4.
I just have this nagging doubt that although I rate him, I just think he has this glass ceiling which would unable him take on this current City team, and that was the discussion last week. That wasn't meant to dig him out, as I think that of 90% of managers. Others disagree, and that's fair enough as well.
I think Man. City will be less of a machine at the business end than they are now. I mean Guardiola's first season when the squad he inherited was too old and set in their ways they finished 3rd on 78 points. In 19/20 they also "only" got to 81 points (pretty sure they won all but one game after resumption of that season).
Whatever happens in next few weeks Arsenal are very well placed to capitalise so they just need to stay patient. It's very similar to Liverpool in 2019, pushing Man. City right to the end and then fully capitalising when Man. City had a poor start the next season.
At the start of this season Arteta was benching Gabriel and playing Partey as an inverted FB so he won't be doing stuff like that at the start of next season given how settled everything looks for them now.
Yes I agree. We're the perfect club for where he is in his managerial career. Just as Villareal was coming off PSG and Arsenal not working out as hoped. He also thought that of Newcastle before changing his mind at the last minute.
Still young enough to have another crack at a CL contender eventually....Barca, Bayern Munich, maybe Inter Milan etc.
Pretty reasonable line to play tbh. That's a lot of injuries
He would be perfect for Newcastle tbh. They can support him with resources.
Completely humiliated by Olympiacos.
I have nothing against Villa or Emery but I do enjoy seeing the other teams in our league getting knocked out of Europe
How did that happen?
Was going to be hard going on both fronts but what a season they’re in for. 4th looks in the bag.
Emery plays a high-line but also quite a controlled game (except when he's playing a rabble like this United team, when they can just go for the throat, pressing incessantly, and counter-pressing when turned over etc etc). Villa got stung early on the counter after messing around trying to walk it in, had a three goal deficit, and didn't know whether to keep circulating the ball to eventually work angles or start taking proper risks. Plus likes of Luiz had very middling-games. Not sure whether Emery has turned any big margins around in Europe but his success is normally to frustrate sides and pick away at them (see the Ole final), without conceding many chances, more than it is to go full Ange: he seemed to be flummoxed as to what to do.
Cheers
Hit some long balls to El-Kaabi and watch him score five goals in two matches.
Congratulations
From Gerrard to CL football in 18 months
Congrats, at least something good came out tonight.
This made the Arteta project looks bad. Shorter time and spent less money.
We aren't going to be challenging for the title anytime soon.
Probably more likely to drop down like Newcastle have and that will let in Chelsea.
Considering how Spurs look out of gas playing three cup games all season I'm really intrigued how they're going to cope playing their style with Thursday-Sunday. Could start next season like they're finishing this and suddenly Ange is under pressure and he's just another Spurs manager.
I didn't follow the game but Olympiakos are coached by best 2016-17 LaLiga manager and 2023 Europa League winner, Jose Luis Mendilibar, and Olympiakos's record is quite good since he arrived this season.
Fair play to Villa for earning Champions league football for next season one of the few interesting things to happen in a fairly boring Premier League season.
he knew
Waited all this time to tweet this. I’d have thought he’d be happy to get CL football but seems replying to Rio was top of the agenda
Congrats to ya.
How small time. He got called out for acting the prat in his goal celebration and it looks as if he's cried about it ever since.
Congrats to him and Villa. He's a fantastic manager.