Unai Emery’s aura sparks Aston Villa hope where there should be fear
The clearest illustration of Unai Emery’s genius is not the European silverware in Aston Villa’s trophy cabinet; it is the lack of trepidation around Villa Park while the Villans have the spine ripped out of them.
Had any other club, with almost any other manager, undergone the swift and drastic change seen at Villa Park in a single summer, they would be firmly in ‘Fear For Them’ territory.
Villa aren’t even in the top five. Emery, that.
Of course, the Premier League’s second-longest-serving boss has earned his trust. Few managers in the modern era have transformed a club like Emery has Villa.
He found them in October 2022 in a relegation battle, one place above the drop zone but level on points with the two sides below them. In the three-and-a-half seasons since replacing Steven Gerrard, Emery has had Villa in the Champions League twice and guided them to Europa League glory.
This is astonishing…
PREMIER LEAGUE TABLE SINCE EMERY WAS APPOINTED AT VILLA
So it’s little wonder they’ve given Emery the keys to the Villa castle. The manager has total authority, having furnished the Villa dressing room and front office to his taste.
Which must be why Villa fans are calm – excited, expectant even – despite the Europa League-winning side being dismantled and picked apart.
Six of the starters in Istanbul are at varying stages down the road out of Villa Park. Set to be shorn of their spine, with Emiliano Martinez, Ezri Konsa, Youri Tielemans, Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins all set to be gone come the start of September, really, Villa fans have no right to be this hopeful.
Are they still drunk on Europa-ade? Can Emery’s sorcery really stretch to maintaining Villa’s recent high standards through a season of such transition?
Not just on the pitch has there been an overhaul; Emery’s backroom team has undergone huge changes too.
His long-time assistant Pako Ayestaran and set-piece coach Austin MacPhee have left, with Villa’s individual development coach, a technical assistant and three medics following them.
Given the scale of transition undertaken in a single summer, some of it forced upon Villa, this may be the only time Emery wished he wasn’t pulling all the strings. But in the manager’s mind, a chaotic summer is a price worth paying for almost authoritarian control.
And Villa fans would rather Emery was hand-picking the replacements for Villa’s departees rather than a faceless suit imposing them upon him.
Their recruitment so far has managed to allay whatever fears the Holte End might be suppressing. Joao Gomes and Johan Manzambi are eye-catching signings, while Zion Suzuki appears a very capable, well-timed successor to Martinez.
Villa will likely have two new full-backs in Matteo Ruggeri and Aaron Wan-Bissaka and though Alejandro Garnacho is a punt, Emery’s aura makes him the winger’s best chance of resurrecting his career.
Of course, there is still plenty to do. So much so that, again, a similar level of recruitment remaining undone this close to the deadline would spark panic almost anywhere else.
If Watkins and Konsa depart, Villa will be left in need of a centre-back, a centre-forward and midfielders of two, maybe three different kinds.
Even if they are successful in ticking off every job on their recruitment to-do list, all the while reducing their squad-cost ratio, getting an almost entirely new team to gel quickly enough to stave off the kind of scrutiny the Premier League would inevitably bring seems a tall order even for Emery.
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Perhaps we will see a different Villa in terms of style as well as personnel, especially through the early part of the season. Most managers would opt for a more pragmatic approach while the chaos settles.
But Emery is safer than most managers – perhaps all of them. He has licence to fail, certainly through these first stages of a Villa revolution – not an evolution – but he seems to intent on pushing on as if he hasn’t just had the arse ripped out of his entire set-up.
“I feel like the club is in a new era, with this possibility to fight for trophies,” Emery said in July. “Winning the Champions League is something I dream of. I see teams that have come close to a level similar to ours over the years. Three years ago, Borussia Dortmund reached the final. Villarreal reached the semis against Liverpool and came close to reaching the final.
“So, at Aston Villa, we’ll also try to be competitive, a team that is renowned, that’s closer to winning than losing, and that’s back in contention or capable of competing with the best teams to win titles.”
From anyone else, you might write that off as the bluster to be expected from a manager desperate to paint a positive, ambitious picture.
But this mad, brilliant b*stard believes it – and we trust him. Which makes Villa the most fascinating team at the start of a season of so many unknowns, and one very easy to root for.
