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Unai Emery


PeterSw

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21 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

I don't remember this fear of losing our manager with any previous incumbent. OK, with most of them we weren't too bothered anyway, but even at Deano's high water mark, all the talk on VT was "He'll probably end up as England manager, but if so, that'll mean he's been successful with us, and we'll be well placed to get an as good or even better replacement". 

But with Unai, we're in totally new territory, in that, right now, we can't even imagine a better manager. Any replacement, whatever their CV, would feel like a downgrade. 

Of course, things could change... 

You'd need to go for Klopp or Pep to find a better manager really. At least in this league. 

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I seriously doubt he will leave us until he's achieved what he wants to, especially when we're probably ahead of schedule already and I'm sure even he will be surprised at how well it's gone and how good the squad he's inherited is.

He could have got one of the big jobs before he took us on anyway. If he wins one of the big trophies here he will go down as an all-time managing great. 

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Emery is quite unique in that he's shown he has the ability to succeed with the top clubs, and the second tier of clubs. 

Pep has only ever managed a club with the biggest budget in the league, and I think he'd struggle anywhere else.

Klopp got Dortmund and Liverpool success without the biggest budget and some similar constraints to us, so I think he'd have improved us.

That said, I don't think anyone turns a club around from relegation form to champions league form in less than one year, except our Unai.

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5 hours ago, DevonIsAPlaceOnEarth said:

Hypothetically, if Emery finished the season winning the Conference League and got us into the champions league, would it make him the best manager in our history given the strength of opposition he’s facing?

I'll hold judgement til the end of next season when he's delivered the quadruple.

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On 26/10/2023 at 20:37, TheMelvillan said:

Mad to think Gerrard is probably earning more than Unai

Unai is earning the love and respect of a global fanbase, as well as the recognition and admiration of large parts of the football community as a whole, in addition to a large sum of money. Gerrard is simply earning a larger sum of money.

I suppose it depends on what you consider to be more valuable.

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This a really nice article on Emery and his approach since he's arrived...

The PL site/app donesn't provide a sharing link to embed the article 🙄

Quote

In the week of the anniversary of Spaniard's arrival, Alex Keble analyses club's rapid evolution...

...The reason Emery still doesn’t get quite enough praise is that he is hard to pin down. Defining his style with neat tactical buzzwords is difficult, such is the flexibility of his approach.

The sense that Villa’s core values slip through your fingers is, of course, a deliberate strategy to confuse and confound the opposition. He implements a structure that is highly flexible in order to provide space for detailed instruction on the opponent. Emery is a fastidious studier of the other team, famously poring dozens of hours into analysis to find the slightest flaw.

“The manager spoke before the game and gave us a game plan, and it’s crazy because whatever the manager says, he knows how the game is going to go before,” Matty Cash said after the 5-2 victory at Burnley in August. “He does that all the time – he’s incredible.”

The advantage is twofold - if Villa's players follow his instructions they will not only outsmart the other team but, having changed their own set-up, they will also be indecipherable to their opponent.

Villa’s unknowable and unassuming presence is such that even Opta cannot quite reveal who they really are. It’s almost comical that Opta’s graph of Premier League playing styles has Villa exactly in the middle, hidden and intangible.

https://www.premierleague.com/news/3750635

Edited by blandy
fixed formatting
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26 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Very good article. I liked this bit: 

Screenshot_2023-10-28-11-35-37-04_40deb401b9ffe8e1df2f1cc5ba480b12.jpg

Where are Man City? Or has the premier league erased them from the records in advance of their pending expulsion?

Interesting United are similarly middle of the road, except I'd say our variation is a result of Emery varying our approach as required by the game.  Whereas United's is a genuine case of them not having a clue what they're doing, no pattern and no identity.

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21 minutes ago, Mantis said:

To have the highest win ratio of any Aston Villa manger after a year in the top flight is actually a pretty phenomenal achievement. A year is a long time in football and by that point you've played everyone and any kind of new manager bounce will have long dissipated.

Cuts both ways, though. All those others are 'final scores'. Emery is still in his 'honeymoon period' at Villa, and hasn't yet had the inevitable (?) bad run. He can only be judged properly when he leaves. 

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