How Long will Unai Emery stay as manager of Aston Villa?

[Jas10]

5 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

There's been a fair amount of 'entanglement' already: his preferred choice as Sporting Director, the stake in his club, his son in our U23s, etc. None of that is determinative of course, but this does feel like a deeper commitment from both parties than the average managerial appointment. 

I realise that doesn't answer the question but it's worth noting. 

[Thug]

6 hours ago, Tom13 said:

What's the reference of this? I just have to know things

Stephen King. Misery. ‘Hobbling’ as a means to prevent an unwanted departure.

 

[Pinebro]

14 hours ago, Wezbid said:

He's got what he wants here and we have what we want. I don't think either of us has properly had that for a long time.

I see him here for a long time.

I'm not sure.

FFP is limiting us and what he can do.

Rumours says we have to sell in order to spend in the summer which is not good.

[cheltenham_villa]

I think his club average is 2-3 years, some of that his choosing and some of that the clubs I guess. 

I'd like to think he's here for a project but I also worry that getting us into the champions league would have him thinking he's hit our ceiling.

If he gets a chance at a big job (United, bayern, barca, real) then he's off I'm sure. 

[nick76]

2 hours ago, Pinebro said:

I'm not sure.

FFP is limiting us and what he can do.

Rumours says we have to sell in order to spend in the summer which is not good.

Just like every other club at the moment.  If it was just us then fine but almost any other club he goes to is facing the same limitations ie being currently limited because most clubs don’t have much FFP wiggle room at the moment to do significant incoming transfer activity without the need for some outgoings.

[sheepyvillian]

The same amount of years as Saunders, I hope.

[WallisFrizz]

33 minutes ago, cheltenham_villa said:

I think his club average is 2-3 years, some of that his choosing and some of that the clubs I guess. 

I'd like to think he's here for a project but I also worry that getting us into the champions league would have him thinking he's hit our ceiling.

If he gets a chance at a big job (United, bayern, barca, real) then he's off I'm sure. 

I don’t think he leaves us for United. Especially if we get CL and they don’t.

I think it will be a Spanish club.

[Stevo985]

I’ve gone for 1-2 years mainly because I’m still in slight disbelief that he’s our manager and I can’t imagine such a good thing happening to Aston Villa. Something will come along to **** it up

[Zatman]

As long as he wants

[nick76]

57 minutes ago, cheltenham_villa said:

I'd like to think he's here for a project but I also worry that getting us into the champions league would have him thinking he's hit our ceiling.

The problem though we’ve consistently beat this ceiling under his tenure.  Our 2023 points haul was above 80 points.  

We are a whisker away from more whatever that means…we are only a couple of results away from being in the current title race after 26 games.  

Given the massive defensive injuries we’ve had you can see where we’ve been unusually unlucky.  

All teams have injuries of course and we aren’t true title contenders at all imo but an addition here or there and our injured players back next season then I think we’d be on par with Arsenal and Liverpool.  City are above all imo in terms of quality but we are in the rest of the hunting pack next season.  Our ceiling is higher than just about qualifying for the CL and there are only a couple of clubs that are above that.

[sne]

Edited February 28 by sne

[allani]

17 hours ago, Teale's 'tache said:

I've no idea, I guess it depends on who comes calling and when. I'm sure he'd find it hard to turn down the likes of Barcelona or Real Madrid, no matter how entrenched he may be here.

I think he wants to win the Champions League, and I think he'd love to do that here, but if progress slows and that becomes increasingly more unlikely then those offers to leave will become more tempting.

I don't want to think about him leaving, I just want to enjoy it while he's here. But, one day he will leave, that's just life.

Good luck to whoever takes over after him though, not only is it an impossible act to follow on the pitch, but imagine staff upheaval as they all follow him to wherever he goes...

I disagree with the first point and to an extent the second.  He's been to Arsenal and he's been to PSG and he knows that at those types of clubs you get interference from above (owners, etc saying who they want to buy and how they want to play) and below (players who think they are bigger than the team).  He works much better where he has control - to manage the team as he wants and with players who will listen to him and do what he wants them to do (or at least try to).  I think that's clear from what he has "demanded" to come here - he's got complete control over the team, he's got the coaching team he wants, he's got a DOF (for want of a better term) who he's completely in synch with in terms of the type of players that he wants (ability and personality wise).  Everything is perfectly set up for him with the arrangements here.  It's very unlikely that he'll get that anywhere else - at Utd, Real Madrid and Barcelona he'd almost certainly have big name players bought just to make the owners look good without any idea of how they will fit in.  (The same applies to Monchi - I think he's seen that he was made the scapegoat at Roma where the owners basically told him what players they wanted him to sign.)

Obviously, his reign at manager is reliant on three things.  Success on the pitch (i.e. the club need him to be helping us achieve the best we can AND he will want to be competing for honours), support off it (i.e. we need to be giving him the tools to try and do what he wants us to be able to do) and his personal life. 

However, Emery seems to be one of those guys who would take more personal satisfaction from winning say the Europa League with us than winning the Champions League with Man City.  That's not saying that he's not ambitious - almost the opposite.  I think privately he wants to be THE reason why the club is successful and not the fact that they are the team with the most money.  Of course, he would never say that - it will always be about the team, the club and the fans coming together to achieve things together.  He's tried the "biggest" club thing at PSG and I don't think he enjoyed it.  That said - we did of course manage to convince him to come and join us and leave a team where he was delivering success.  But I do think that was partly down to the PL and having the chance to come back and prove himself here.  So I think we were a unique opportunity at a very specific point of time.

My current thinking is that he will stay here for a while (4 or 5 more seasons), he'll make us competitive in the PL and have a few cup adventures with us and I think we will land some form of silverware.  We (and he) will be regarded as a huge success and the model of a well-run club with a proven track-record of over-achieving.  Then I think he'll eventually decide that he's achieved everything he wants and he'll go back to Spain and become manager at a smaller team, closer to home and take pleasure in guiding them to the best period in their history which might just be promotion to La Liga and staying in the division.  He probably won't win as many titles as Pep but like I say I think he'd prefer to look back at his career and point to every title he does win, every season in which his team is competitive and the meaning that that had to the club and the fans.  He's in it for the honour not the glory (although of course he wants to win things too!).

[allani]

4 hours ago, Pinebro said:

I'm not sure.

FFP is limiting us and what he can do.

Rumours says we have to sell in order to spend in the summer which is not good.

Every club "has" to sell if they want to spend in the summer.  It's all about having as much control over the players that you sell as possible (i.e. those whose financial value or cost exceeds the value they add to the team and the cost to the team of losing them).

There are also plenty of positive rumours that suggest we are in a much better position with regards to FFP than many other clubs - especially when you take into account the fact that we have a lot more headroom than most in terms of increasing things like: sponsorship deals, merchandising figures, match day revenues, TV money, prize-money, etc.  Most clubs will struggle as the new rules / timeframes kick in - there aren't many clubs that don't have any negative rumours about FFP at the moment.  I think the Everton / Forest breaches mean that everyone is a bit on edge about it.

Finally, we know that Emery and Monchi have a track record of finding players at a lower cost and transforming them into key players - neither are reliant on just spending big money on high reputation players.  So if our competitors are in a similar FFP boat - that's probably actually going to be a huge advantage to us.

[DaveAV1]

2 hours ago, WallisFrizz said:

I don’t think he leaves us for United. Especially if we get CL and they don’t.

I think it will be a Spanish club.

Villa is already a Spanish name. Panic over nothing, a classic VT thread!! Calm down, calm down as our former manager and CEO  would say. 

[Teale's 'tache]

29 minutes ago, allani said:

I disagree with the first point and to an extent the second.  He's been to Arsenal and he's been to PSG and he knows that at those types of clubs you get interference from above (owners, etc saying who they want to buy and how they want to play) and below (players who think they are bigger than the team).  He works much better where he has control - to manage the team as he wants and with players who will listen to him and do what he wants them to do (or at least try to).  I think that's clear from what he has "demanded" to come here - he's got complete control over the team, he's got the coaching team he wants, he's got a DOF (for want of a better term) who he's completely in synch with in terms of the type of players that he wants (ability and personality wise).  Everything is perfectly set up for him with the arrangements here.  It's very unlikely that he'll get that anywhere else - at Utd, Real Madrid and Barcelona he'd almost certainly have big name players bought just to make the owners look good without any idea of how they will fit in.  (The same applies to Monchi - I think he's seen that he was made the scapegoat at Roma where the owners basically told him what players they wanted him to sign.)

Obviously, his reign at manager is reliant on three things.  Success on the pitch (i.e. the club need him to be helping us achieve the best we can AND he will want to be competing for honours), support off it (i.e. we need to be giving him the tools to try and do what he wants us to be able to do) and his personal life. 

However, Emery seems to be one of those guys who would take more personal satisfaction from winning say the Europa League with us than winning the Champions League with Man City.  That's not saying that he's not ambitious - almost the opposite.  I think privately he wants to be THE reason why the club is successful and not the fact that they are the team with the most money.  Of course, he would never say that - it will always be about the team, the club and the fans coming together to achieve things together.  He's tried the "biggest" club thing at PSG and I don't think he enjoyed it.  That said - we did of course manage to convince him to come and join us and leave a team where he was delivering success.  But I do think that was partly down to the PL and having the chance to come back and prove himself here.  So I think we were a unique opportunity at a very specific point of time.

My current thinking is that he will stay here for a while (4 or 5 more seasons), he'll make us competitive in the PL and have a few cup adventures with us and I think we will land some form of silverware.  We (and he) will be regarded as a huge success and the model of a well-run club with a proven track-record of over-achieving.  Then I think he'll eventually decide that he's achieved everything he wants and he'll go back to Spain and become manager at a smaller team, closer to home and take pleasure in guiding them to the best period in their history which might just be promotion to La Liga and staying in the division.  He probably won't win as many titles as Pep but like I say I think he'd prefer to look back at his career and point to every title he does win, every season in which his team is competitive and the meaning that that had to the club and the fans.  He's in it for the honour not the glory (although of course he wants to win things too!).

I don't think it needs to be that deep.

Emery is a winner, he wants to win things, if not here, then elsewhere.

To any Spanish manager, the opportunity to manage institutions like Barcelona and Real Madrid is a massive honour and one that is very difficult to turn down, no matter what state they may be in, any restrictions they may face or how good they currently have it. How many British managers would turn down the opportunity to manage Liverpool or Man Utd? I think it's probably a round number if you ignore club allegiances. If he's offered the chance he will rightly consider it.

I see this often on this forum where the fans see 'massive' issues, Emery doesn't look at things that way, he sees solutions, he sees the opportunity to improve. We look at Barcelona and think it's a basket case and he'd be crazy to go there, Emery sees ways to fix it, backs himself to be the one that saves them. We know he didn't achieve what he wanted at PSG or Arsenal, but he's come back to the Premier League to correct the Arsenal one, I have no doubts he'll want to correct the PSG one before the end of his career as well. 

I believe he wants to win the Champions League, it is the pinnacle of club management, no manager retires without one and is considered truly elite, he was close with Villarreal, but he left them to come here and build something strong enough to go a step further and win it. If it looks like he can't win one here eventually he'll go somewhere he can.

I'm not saying he wants to go, I don't think that's his plan at all, like you say he's laid down roots here, and he's building something. It's obvious his short to mid-term plan is to stay here, so I don't think he'd easily walk away. I just think we'd be a little naive to assume he's going to be here for the next 5-10 years no matter who comes in for him or what progress we've made. I hope he will still be here because if he's still here in 5 years time it means we've been successful and are battling for the biggest prize.

[El Segundo]

If you believe the Meedya Emery is supposedly in the conversations about future managers for the likes of Bayern, Barca, Real Madrid and Man Yoo.  If so, that would be largely based on what he's been doing at Villa.  However I'm fairly sure they would also consider his record at regular CL clubs Arsenal and PSG, as well as his league performances at his Spanish clubs.  Those aren't as impressive, and maybe they would conclude his strength is punching above his weight and moulding a team in his own image with aspirational clubs rather than operating at the established elite/galactico level.  I hope that's the case and hopefully Emery thinks the same. 

[RichW]

I'm just enjoying the moment and not thinking about post-Emery yet. It will get to a point where he will be poached by a club that appeals to him or results will nosedive and he will get sacked but whenever that does happen I think the club is such an attractive project for anybody. When Dean Smith got sacked, the list of managers that Villa were linked with wasn't exactly exciting whereas I don't think Villa will have that problem post-Emery. 

[YLN]

I bet that when Emery goes we get someone even better. Gareth Barry or Jordan Henderson or someone like that that can get the best out of our midfield

[Mic09]

9 minutes ago, El Segundo said:

If you believe the Meedya Emery is supposedly in the conversations about future managers for the likes of Bayern, Barca, Real Madrid and Man Yoo.  If so, that would be largely based on what he's been doing at Villa.  However I'm fairly sure they would also consider his record at regular CL clubs Arsenal and PSG, as well as his league performances at his Spanish clubs.  Those aren't as impressive, and maybe they would conclude his strength is punching above his weight and moulding a team in his own image with aspirational clubs rather than operating at the established elite/galactico level.  I hope that's the case and hopefully Emery thinks the same. 

Hasn't Emery had the best record at PSG? And hasn't he done well at Arsenal but their expectations of instant success and post Wenger blues make him lose the job? 

[allani]

39 minutes ago, Teale's 'tache said:

I don't think it needs to be that deep.

Emery is a winner, he wants to win things, if not here, then elsewhere.

To any Spanish manager, the opportunity to manage institutions like Barcelona and Real Madrid is a massive honour and one that is very difficult to turn down, no matter what state they may be in, any restrictions they may face or how good they currently have it. How many British managers would turn down the opportunity to manage Liverpool or Man Utd? I think it's probably a round number if you ignore club allegiances. If he's offered the chance he will rightly consider it.

I see this often on this forum where the fans see 'massive' issues, Emery doesn't look at things that way, he sees solutions, he sees the opportunity to improve. We look at Barcelona and think it's a basket case and he'd be crazy to go there, Emery sees ways to fix it, backs himself to be the one that saves them. We know he didn't achieve what he wanted at PSG or Arsenal, but he's come back to the Premier League to correct the Arsenal one, I have no doubts he'll want to correct the PSG one before the end of his career as well. 

I believe he wants to win the Champions League, it is the pinnacle of club management, no manager retires without one and is considered truly elite, he was close with Villarreal, but he left them to come here and build something strong enough to go a step further and win it. If it looks like he can't win one here eventually he'll go somewhere he can.

I'm not saying he wants to go, I don't think that's his plan at all, like you say he's laid down roots here, and he's building something. It's obvious his short to mid-term plan is to stay here, so I don't think he'd easily walk away. I just think we'd be a little naive to assume he's going to be here for the next 5-10 years no matter who comes in for him or what progress we've made. I hope he will still be here because if he's still here in 5 years time it means we've been successful and are battling for the biggest prize.

I agree with a lot of what you say.  However, I think where I see it slightly different is that I believe Emery would see winning La Liga with Villareal or the PL with us as a much, much bigger deal than winning it with Barcelona or Man City.  I mean "anyone" could win La Liga with Barcelona.  But winning the CL with Villareal would be beyond special.  I just think all the time there's a chance of competing here, there's actually fewer clubs that he'd leave to join than we might think.  And yes maybe I am looking at it through claret and blue tinted glasses - but at the moment I do think there's a chance here to do the things he wants to achieve and (importantly) the time to do it.  But either way I'd be more surprised about him leaving more a massive club like those you mentioned than I would if he left for a club closer to our kind of level.  For example, maybe Atletico (supported by ambitious owners) would be a bigger threat than Real.  Winning titles with Atletico would elevate him to a level of eliteness higher than winning them with Real.  But again the number of clubs in that category is probably pretty small - assuming things continue to go well here.