Emery’s Importance Of Being Earnest – Who Denies Villa Are Back?

Aston Villa had a pretty disastrous spell under the charge of former Rangers manager Steven Gerrard, and as the club dispensed with his services following a very embarrassing 3-0 defeat to Fulham in late October of the 2022/23 campaign, the club surprised plenty in the wider world of football and appointed perceived Arsenal failure, Unai Emery to the job.

Villa were odds on favourites for relegation at the time of his appointment, but for those who followed the 52 year old Spaniard properly at the Emirates Stadium, he was anything but a failure, he just could not live up to the daft expectations that some had. He also arguably did the heavy work that Mikel Arteta has benefited from when it came to sorting out the ‘troublemakers’ in their first team group.

This was a process he repeated at Villa, but with one subtle difference. Upon his arrival, there were no ‘troublemakers’—just players woefully out of form, who had forgotten proper tactics and were completely demotivated after being thrown under the bus too many times. Even the top ranked bookmakers available would have struggled to predict Villa’s remarkable rise in pedigree. Nowadays, it’s rare to find an opponent where Villa aren’t either favourites or, at the very least, close to it.

All Emery did was show them love, started training them to death with proper tactics, threw excuses in the bin and demanded they gave everything. The players reacted, Villa ended the campaign in seventh place in the table and the points they picked up during his time in charge had them in the top five, only beaten by Manchester City, Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool. Villans regretted the fact that he had missed two and a half months given that return, but they were delighted to finally book a place back in Europe as their finish took them into the Europa Conference League.

Not bad for a squad circling the drain, so with Villa fans wondering what he could do with a full season, the board decided to trust him further and they allowed him to hand pick and appoint his own President of Football Operations (long term friend and colleague Monchi) and Damian Vidagany as Director of Football Operations. They also spent about £80 million that summer.

With a full pre season under his belt, Emery answered the question of what he could do with a full season and he bettered seventh place, took them to fourth spot and the Champions League at the next time of asking.

For anyone who felt this was a flash in the pan and the ultimate honeymoon period, let us move to 2024/25.

Two Champions League games in, they have won both and one of those games was against 1982 European Cup victims, Bayern Munich. Emery also has them sat back in fourth place in the Premier League table, just shy of Liverpool in top spot by four points.

Emery is now on the cusp of celebrating his 24 month anniversary in the Midlands, and with records already matched or beaten in the last two years that have stretched back 10 to 30 seasons, he marked his 12 month anniversary by seeing them move into the top four on points gained table, replacing Manchester United.

It is almost poetic on some levels that Fulham were their most recent, and last opposition, before his two years are official. The game proved to be the final straw for their board when it came to their last manager, but for Emery he saw his side give up an early goal, and then fightback to win 3-1. Seven of the starting eleven were available to the previous manager, in fact, he signed two of them and they are now in their best form of their Villa career.

Funny the difference a manager can make – wonder what happens in year three?

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