On Tuesday of last year, Unai Emery was named Steven Gerrard’s permanent replacement as manager of Aston Villa.
Villa was outside the bottom three goals scored in the Premier League when Gerrard was fired; they are currently in fifth place. Only Manchester City has collected more points than Villa in the Premier League in 2023.Emery’s team has now won 11 straight home league games after defeating West Ham over the weekend, which is a record they haven’t had since 1983.
Emery has consistently been a strict coach. He talked a lot during his early months at Arsenal about getting players to think differently about training. Everyone had to train to win; training for the sake of training and training to compete were not acceptable.
It is obvious that players must have complete physical and mental buy-in. At Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain, for example, where some players were not persuaded by his man management or tactics, that buy-in was never truly achieved. However, he discovered a group eager to learn at Villa, where the players were eager to move on from the less successful times under Gerrard.
Emery sets the example; anything less would not function. In order to be ready for games, he frequently puts in sixteen-hour workdays. This includes lengthy sessions with coaches and one-on-one player analysis made possible by viewing games four or five times. A modification in procedure, such as spending the night in a hotel before home matches to strengthen group ties, has been beneficial.And Villa’s players are clearly impressed. Listen to any of them and one word will come up. “This attention to detail is key,” says Ezri Konsa. “He has such an impressive attention to detail,” says Tyrone Mings. “Details,” says John McGinn. “I add details every day”, says the man himself, and we tend to believe him.Most importantly, attention to detail is both a symptom and a cause of success. Emery’s work is clearly improving the players, but it also gives them confidence that everything is being done to help them reach their potential..Like every other Premier League club, Aston Villa added to their squad during the summer. They signed a flagship centre-back (Pau Torres) and striker (Moussa Diaby) while Nicolo Zaniolo and Youri Tyrone Mings added depth to the midfield. On Sunday, Villa welcomed Tielemans and Leon Bailey and left Diego Carlos, Bertrand Traore, Clement Lenglet and Leander Dendoncker on the bench. And that’s because Tyrone Mings, Alex Moreno, Emi Buendia and Jacob Ramsey are injured.But the depth of the squad has improved significantly as Emery has enhanced his legacy. Konsa and Mings (before his injury) were in a position to deserve international calls. Douglas Luiz has become a versatile marauding midfielder. Ollie Watkins is the country’s in-form striker. The quarterbacks are flying.Couple this with the improvement in morale (which is cyclical: wins beget good vibes, good vibes beget wins), and players left off the team realize that others now have a place, but want to push their road.
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