Aston Villa appoint Unai Emery as manager

Dark Horse for the whole thing. Credit to them, their home support is great at a proper football stadium, Emery in Europe and they can beat anyone on their day.

We are probably the favourites this year as well, atleast one of the bigger ones, and we got absolutely battered at Villa Park last year.
 
I've picked Villa this weekend in my son's football teams last man standing, I'll soon bring them back down to earth with my luck in predictions.
 
Worth remembering that Villa were in 17th place with 9 points after 11 games when Gerrard was sacked.

He gained 52 points in the next 27 games and finished 7th.

68 points in the next season to finish 4th.

17 points this season and in 4th alongside the team that people touted to win the league this year (Arsenal, who they were also unlucky to lose against), 9 points from 9 in the CL including a massive win against Bayern and still in the League Cup too.

No flukes, just an extremely competent manager that has elevated the whole club to a new (old) level.
 
A fascinating study in management. Didn't do that well at Arsenal and yet goes to another PL team that is inarguably weaker and does a fantastic job. This is a prime example of why managers move clubs so often these days. You can't really tell how good a manager is if they fail in a certain job.
 
mctrials23 said:
A fascinating study in management. Didn't do that well at Arsenal and yet goes to another PL team that is inarguably weaker and does a fantastic job. This is a prime example of why managers move clubs so often these days. You can't really tell how good a manager is if they fail in a certain job.
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I don't know if it is a modern thing or not, but I definitely think we as observers tend to look at performance and ability (and development for that matter) in players and managers as a way too linear thing. I lean towards it being a more modern thing thanks to the whole "you are only as good as twitter think you are that given weekend" mentality.

Right coach, right personality, right methods at the right time with the right group of players has always been the case in manager performance, and while it is fine to single out those truly elite at their craft and rightfully expect that they would probably improve any team there is so much more to it, and the amount of working coaches in the game that can have unforeseen impact on any given team is probably larger than we realise.

That said, Emery certainly has had years of consistency now that ensures he will go down as very good manager on the whole. Maybe his methods and personality are less suited to high expectations or squads with big egos based on his PSG and Arsenal stints, but that could easily change if he gets the right job. Could easily see him be able to improve a team like Atletico from the stalemate Simeone has them in for example, and with that elevated level of players he would get his hand on the biggest of titles if he is succesfull. Hell, I wouldn't be shocked if he led Villa to one of the major trophies, all though that is not expected at all
 
1 win in 6 in the league. Home loss in the cup. Started to falter in Europe. Wheels are coming off.
 
He seems to be struggling , doesn’t even have a big injury list as an excuse. Still a good manager, but could see some their bigger players off like Martinez & Watkins leaving if they don’t get top 4.
 
Torino said:
He seems to be struggling , doesn’t even have a big injury list as an excuse. Still a good manager, but could see some their bigger players off like Martinez & Watkins leaving if they don’t get top 4.
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Yeah we have injuries. Konsa, Jacob Ramsey, Kamara and Onana all missing today.

I think a big problem currently is we messed up the right hand side strategy badly in the summer. Sold Diaby without properly replacing him and Leon Bailey has gone massively off the boil. Cash had injuries so without Konsa we have to play Bogarde at RB which is a complete nonsense.

We're stacked at CM and Duran is a great back up for Watkins but beyond that the rest of the side isn't functioning that well and we just look lighter in key areas. Rogers had a really poor game today constantly giving the ball away for an hour so he still has plenty to learn at this level even if some of his runs are eye catching.
 
Martinez is quite limited with the ball, and is now well into his thirties and I don’t think Watkins is elite. This is probably what they have going for them, they don’t really have any elite players to “lose”. Just a good core group with good quality over the pitch.

I suspect this is why they voted how they did on sponsorship. They were hamstrung in the summer and had to look for budget deals (as well as selling Diaby) instead of pushing on and bringing in quality better to what they had.

They are a Europa team who got lucky. They would have been easily catchable last season if United hadn’t stuck with ETH.

They needed to capitalize in the summer and they weren’t able to do it. It will be a one and done CL experience for them.
 
No manager or club below the elite teams can maintain the consistency we’ve seen at Villa under Emery over the past twelve months.

Eventually, and it could be sooner, or later down the line, Villa go through a sticky patch, fall back down the table between 6th-10th and Emery comes under pressure. This is the way of things. It might be that the message just stops being heard. It might be because the transfer business is not as effective.

I’m not denigrating Emery here either; he’s clearly a very successful coach. But Villa fans should be enjoy this ride while they can, as it won’t last forever. It’s too hard to maintain.
 
Their team just isn’t that good. Emery also has a tendency to overcomplicate things as time goes on and players start to feel confused about match instructions and roles. I don’t think he knows his best team anymore.

Their squad is strong mid table though, particularly in attack. Rogers - Philogene - Watkins doesn’t scream Champions League.
 
Seven games without a win when in two of them you've faced 17th placed Crystal Palace at home is pretty poor. What will give him more time that others wouldn't get is the fact they've structured the whole club around him with Monchi et al, and that he got them to the Champions League.
 
Think it wasn't difficult to predict Villa's league form would drop because of CL football, especially as same happened to Newcastle last season. Really poor run lately but surely Emery is not in trouble yet?
 
Combine Champions league and premier isn´t easy, even you are Unai. Villa is falling down and I think it´s perfectly normal.
 
Maluco said:
Their team just isn’t that good. Emery also has a tendency to overcomplicate things as time goes on and players start to feel confused about match instructions and roles. I don’t think he knows his best team anymore.

Their squad is strong mid table though, particularly in attack. Rogers - Philogene - Watkins doesn’t scream Champions League.
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Our 11 is weaker than last season for sure. Had to sell Luiz to meet FFP/PSR rules and even though Diaby blew hot and cold he was still better than Jaden Philogene has been.

We botched our right hand side recruitment this summer and now it's been exposed on weekly basis.

Replicating the season Newcastle had last year pretty much in the league.
 
FootballHQ said:
Our 11 is weaker than last season for sure. Had to sell Luiz to meet FFP/PSR rules and even though Diaby blew hot and cold he was still better than Jaden Philogene has been.

We botched our right hand side recruitment this summer and now it's been exposed on weekly basis.

Replicating the season Newcastle had last year pretty much in the league.
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Yeah, I think I wrote in this thread about how you can almost understand the voting with City when you saw how hampered the summer recruitment was. The targets suggested the money just wasn’t there.

Cash still starting and Bailey hasn’t stepped up in Diaby’s absence. Maatsen, while a good player, was probably ill advised when there were LBs already at the club and money was tight.

An RB and RW of top quality should have been the priorities, and as you say, I am not sure the quality is there to turn things round consistently.
 
Simple fact is Villa's players aren't that good and it was a huge overachievement for Emery to get in the Champions League. Exactly the same as Newcastle. You're never going to be in it year in year out with these squads.
 
This should be expected. UCL and EPL is a lot for Villa to juggle.
 
Knew they weren’t a serious side when they couldnt even score let alone win against us at home when we were struggling under Ten Hag.
 
BorisManUtd said:
Think it wasn't difficult to predict Villa's league form would drop because of CL football, especially as same happened to Newcastle last season. Really poor run lately but surely Emery is not in trouble yet?
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He's done an amazing job to take them from where they were when he took over, genuine relegation candidates, to being a champions league team. I doubt there are many managers in the world who could have achieved that.

They're doing quite well in the CL but their squad isn't strong enough to compete effectively in both CL and PL. The Villa owners would be stupid to sack him. Who's available that would do a better job? Graham Potter? David Moyes??!!
 
Oscar Bonavena said:
He's done an amazing job to take them from where they were when he took over, genuine relegation candidates, to being a champions league team. I doubt there are many managers in the world who could have achieved that.

They're doing quite well in the CL but their squad isn't strong enough to compete effectively in both CL and PL. The Villa owners would be stupid to sack him. Who's available that would do a better job? Graham Potter? David Moyes??!!
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Yeah you're right, Emery's got enough credit in the bank.
 
Maluco said:
Cash still starting and Bailey hasn’t stepped up in Diaby’s absence. Maatsen, while a good player, was probably ill advised when there were LBs already at the club and money was tight.
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Maatsen was just some PSR / FFP engineering.
 
FootballHQ said:
Our 11 is weaker than last season for sure. Had to sell Luiz to meet FFP/PSR rules and even though Diaby blew hot and cold he was still better than Jaden Philogene has been.

We botched our right hand side recruitment this summer and now it's been exposed on weekly basis.

Replicating the season Newcastle had last year pretty much in the league.
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Over the years your youth/academy has produced some excellent players, are there no outstanding youngsters coming through at the moment?
 
How has Onana been recently? Felt like he would sort out his consistency issues when he stepped up but perhaps that's not the case?
 
Nice to see them crashing down. Their dodgy deals and their alliance with City against the Premier League has turned them into a right little turd of a club.
 
The classic impact. How often does this happen? a very good manager overachieves and then expectations rise. On top of that, he becomes a standard for other clubs sacking /hiring which is followed by poor results and performances.

They have been really poor for a while now.

Would love to see them slide even further.. A dodgie club along with City and Chelsea.
 
Not beeing keeping a close eye on Villa tbh. But the league table can be bonkers at times.

Villa now in 11th, United in 9th.

City GD = 3
United GD = 4

Goals Conceeded
United = 13
Arsenal = 14
Newcastle = 14
City = 19
Villa = 22
Newcastle = 14

Besy not to give the tabel and notice until after the half way mark.
 
Teja said:
Maatsen was just some PSR / FFP engineering.
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Do you think so? I felt he was a good player being opportunistically picked up, I just didn’t realise at the time that they weren’t going to do much more than that.

I definitely wouldn’t rule out PSR stuff though, because he certainly wasn’t a manager buy by the looks of things.
 
Seems to be giving off end of Arsenal tenure vibes right now.

If it doesn't pick up Villa are stuck in between a rock and a hard place as given what he's done for them it would be pretty ballsy to even think of a change until the situation gets critical.
 
romufc said:
The classic impact. How often does this happen? a very good manager overachieves and then expectations rise. On top of that, he becomes a standard for other clubs sacking /hiring which is followed by poor results and performances.
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A very good summary, and what I was trying to say a month or 2 back when he was Villa were on their good run.
 
GoonerBear said:
A very good summary, and what I was trying to say a month or 2 back when he was Villa were on their good run.
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This is the problem with modern day football, a good period gets glorified and a poor spell and the team / manager is condemned.

Everyone was glossing/ glazing over Unai, yet he has not been able to compete in the PL this season, being well beaten by all the bigger teams (except United ofcourse).

Just look at Arteta, all the closet Arteta out fans came out before the international break.

We saw the same with Glasner last season too, now no one wants to say his name.

Xabi Alonso was the talk last season and now this season it has died down.
 
red woppit said:
Over the years your youth/academy has produced some excellent players, are there no outstanding youngsters coming through at the moment?
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We're selling most of them due to PSR currently.

Aaron Ramsey (15m) to Burnley
Cameron Archer been sold twice in the last 12 months.
Tim Iroegbunam went to Everton for 10m Signed him from West Brom when he was 18.

We sold Jaden Philogene to Hull for 7m and then activated the buyback this summer which is looking a big mistake. Would've been a better move for him to go to Ipswich.

Louie Barry currently ripping it up at Stockport. Not quite a youth prospect as he came through at West Brom aswell when he was 18 and then moved to Barca but talk Boro are interested so they could easily be a loan with permanent inserted if they're promoted.

Like many I'm not a fan of it at all as young players need security rather than being traded all over the place to meet financial requirements but ultimately it's the loophole that so many clubs have exploited in recent years.
 
Dancfc said:
Seems to be giving off end of Arsenal tenure vibes right now.

If it doesn't pick up Villa are stuck in between a rock and a hard place as given what he's done for them it would be pretty ballsy to even think of a change until the situation gets critical.
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We'll still finish comfortably in the top 10. Newcastle had a really poor run mid season last year and rallied to finish 7th and of course that late winning run from Chelsea rocketed you guys up from 11th-12th to 6th fairly quickly. Not too concerned unless we're way off top 6 come February.

Probably some of our fanbase just assumed because we made CL once we'd kept doing it consistently but reality is now dawning and we're just joining a whole host of clubs who fall back down the table when you play in a European competition you're not used to.

Was different last season in the Europa Conference as with standard of opponents up to QF we could pick mix and match 11s and save our key players for the Sunday league game.
 
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