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Aston Villa has won its last eight matches in the Premier League, the English men’s football championship, and if the other competitions are also counted they have not lost in 11 matches. At the moment the team is third in the table in the most difficult and competitive league in the world, with one point less than Manchester City and three less than Arsenal, who they will face on Tuesday at 9.15pm in what will in effect be a direct clash, even if it would not have been easy to predict at the beginning of the season.
Last Saturday, after the victory achieved away against Chelsea, the former footballer and now commentator Alan Shearer said that “we are almost halfway through the season and it must be said that Aston Villa are a serious candidate for the title”. Shearer also said that in his opinion they won’t win it, but that “everything is possible with Unai Emery”.
Statistics and analysis platform Opta gives Aston Villa a 7.55 percent chance of winning the league. They are few, but still more than those at the beginning of the year. And since 1981 (and before that since 1910) Aston Villa hasn’t succeeded.
Emery is 54 years old, he is Spanish and he has been the manager of Aston Villa (a team from the city of Birmingham) since October 2022. When he arrived the team was fifteenth in the table and had not qualified for the European cups for over ten years. In three years he led them to a seventh, a fourth and a sixth place, and to the quarter-finals of last year’s Champions League. Emery is a brilliant and pragmatic coach: his teams don’t always play spectacularly, but often effectively and combatively. Striker Ollie Watkins, who scored twice against Chelsea, called him “a genius”.
This season had also started very badly for Aston Villa, who had never won in their first 5 games and had not scored a single goal in 4 of these. After the bad start, however, they began to win almost always, often coming from behind: it is the team that has recovered the most points (18) from disadvantaged situations in this Premier League. Second The Athletic this data demonstrates Aston Villa’s mentality, the variety of solutions available to Emery and his ability to use them to change the course of matches: against Chelsea, Watkins had started the match on the bench.
Watkins’ brace against Chelsea
Aston Villa is a team without great phenomena, but with many excellent players who always know what to do even in complicated situations. There are strong and complete midfielders like Boubacar Kamara, Amadou Onana and Youri Tielemans, and then many offensive players that Emery manages to alternate effectively (Morgan Rogers, Emiliano Buendia, Jadon Sancho, Donyell Malen, John McGinn, Ollie Watkins).
In recent months he has beaten Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham, that is, 5 of the so-called Big Sixthe six English teams (in addition to these there is Liverpool) considered the strongest and richest.
It’s no surprise when you look at the career of Emery, a coach best known for his ability to prepare for high-level matches. This is demonstrated by data regarding the matches played by its teams in direct elimination phases. Considering all European competitions, Emery has coached his teams (Valencia, Spartak Moscow, Sevilla, Paris Saint-Germain, Arsenal, Villarreal and Aston Villa) in 50 “in or out” matches: in 40 of these his team has progressed, including 33 of the last 39.
He is the coach who has won the Europa League the most times (four, three of which with Sevilla) and has also achieved results above expectations in the Champions League, leading his teams to compete with others of a level (and budget) that is often decidedly superior. In 2022 he took Villarreal to the semi-finals by eliminating Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals. Last year they reached the quarter-finals with Aston Villa, where they almost eliminated eventual champions Paris Saint-Germain. This year Aston Villa plays in the Europa League and is currently third in the championship phase, the one with 36 teams.
In this Europa League Aston Villa beat Bologna with a goal from John McGinn
Emery has almost always achieved his best results coaching teams not favored to win, but has done much worse as manager of teams considered favourites, such as Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal. He is a coach who is at his best when his players feel they have to exceed expectations, whose teams thrive on defensive organization and counter-attacking.
The Athletic he wondered whether it makes sense to consider Emery the best manager in the Premier League at the moment: “Can you imagine Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta or any other manager getting so much out of a team that at the start of this season seemed to have run out of steam?”
Emery’s celebration during Aston Villa’s recent victory against Manchester United (Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)
Until recently, Aston Villa were one of the teams that created fewer scoring opportunities, yet they managed to win many games with impromptu solutions, for example scoring 9 of the first 16 goals in the league with shots from outside the area (a statistical anomaly, given that fewer and fewer shots are being shot and scored from far away). The fact that he has recently started to score more often even from inside the area is considered by Opta analysts to be a sign that Aston Villa can really fight to win the championship.
Tuesday evening’s match against Arsenal will already be an important turning point. Aston Villa have already beaten him this season, and since Emery has been there they have won 3 out of 5 games against Arsenal. Arsenal, on the other hand, are considered the real favorites for this Premier League and are a very solid team in defense and with a lot of attacking talent: they are coached by Mikel Arteta, who like Emery is originally from the Basque Country.
