Aston Villa appoint Unai Emery as manager

Tielemans was the far better option than Mount this summer. Would be nice to have a real midfielder who can score and assist rather than this false midfielder we seem to be playing.

I agree with this because unless Mount is playing as a number 10 he's got no use as an 8 or a 6 which is exactly why he's not featured this season. Whereas Tielemans has experience playing there for Leicester and Belgium. I think Mount is a good player but he's playing in a position where it doesn't suit his strengths and that position is one Tielemans would easily slot into.
 
Net spend would be important here, but also the relativity of what they're up against compared to Leicester who really had the perfect storm.

Their net spend is £365m over the last 5 years, they've spent a fortune
 
Their net spend is £365m over the last 5 years, they've spent a fortune
That's interesting. I think this one is not clear cut:

- Leicester winning when not a single force in the league was primed to challenge
- Villa winning with all the forces going great guns (City will pick up).

If you asked me right now, I'd say Villa winning the league is just as improbable as Leicester doing it when they did. Would like to know who disagrees with that line of thought.
 
Arteta, De Zerbi, ten Hag and Postecoglou are all better / same tier as him. Emery's good but but getting heavily overrated now, let's say Villa finish 6th or 7th, no one will claim he's the 3rd best in the lague.
Not really. He essentially matches the achievements of all of them combined.

Arteta - his best achievement is a second league place and an FA Cup. Emery has a couple of domestic cups and a league win, albeit in a weaker league.
de Zerbi - his biggest achievement is playing good football. Emery's Villa is playing as good if not better football.
ten Hag - won 3 leagues in a weak league with the top dog, and reached semis of UCL with Ajax. Emery won a title in a weak league (but much stronger than Holland's) with the top dog, but also won 4 Europa Leagues. Furthermore, reached semis of UCL with Villareal.
Postecoglou - won leagues in farmer's league with the top dog. So did Emery.

So, while ten Hag and Postecoglou won weak leagues with the biggest team there, so did Emery. Unlike them, he also won 4 Europa Leagues. Like ten Hag, reached semis of UCL with a team that has no business reaching that stage. Like Arteta and de Zerbi, played good football in England.

Achievements-wise, he is easily the third best in the league and likely top 10 in the world.
 
I agree with this because unless Mount is playing as a number 10 he's got no use as an 8 or a 6 which is exactly why he's not featured this season. Whereas Tielemans has experience playing there for Leicester and Belgium. I think Mount is a good player but he's playing in a position where it doesn't suit his strengths and that position is one Tielemans would easily slot into.
Thank you for seeing my point.
 
He should be out next chosen one.

He had toxic environments at Arsenal and PSG which were difficult places to impose his methods. Man. United are exactly what Arsenal were in 2018 when Aubameyang and Ozil were the key players but very very difficult to manage.

We're the perfect club for him currently in his career. When he leaves us I honestly think it will be to Real Madrid or Barca. Or maybe the Spanish national team.
 
He had toxic environments at Arsenal and PSG which were difficult places to impose his methods. Man. United are exactly what Arsenal were in 2018 when Aubameyang and Ozil were the key players but very very difficult to manage.

We're the perfect club for him currently in his career. When he leaves us I honestly think it will be to Real Madrid or Barca. Or maybe the Spanish national team.
Spain is a possibility, but Madrid/Barca? No. He lacks the presence for those jobs, dressing rooms would eat him alive
 
I'd like to see him get another shot at a BIG club. He was doomed to fail at Arsenal just because of the circumstances. You never want to be the guy that replaces the legend. You want to be the guy that replaces the guy that replaces the legend. And unfortunately for Emery, he inherited more than just a footballing mess at Arsenal.

Wenger was basically the ceo, head coach, head scout, head kit man etc etc. And when he left, everyone was fighting for the bits of power that he had and Emery just wanted to coach and not play politics.

With the way Chelsea is run, he'll probably be managing there in a year or so
 
Spain is a possibility, but Madrid/Barca? No. He lacks the presence for those jobs, dressing rooms would eat him alive

I was thinking more his style is very similar to Valverde who Barca were happy enough to have as coach for 3-4 years. He had solid achievements for all the various clubs he managed but not actually won anything significant outside of Greece up to taking up Barca position.

It will be interesting the direction Real Madrid go post Ancelotti. They selected Lopetegui all those years ago although it was a six months to forget, another very similar style to Unai. Or Florentino could just be ultra lazy, click his fingers and get Zidane out of semi retirement yet again I guess. :lol:
 
I was thinking more his style is very similar to Valverde who Barca were happy enough to have as coach for 3-4 years. He had solid achievements for all the various clubs he managed but not actually won anything significant outside of Greece up to taking up Barca position.

It will be interesting the direction Real Madrid go post Ancelotti. They selected Lopetegui all those years ago although it was a six months to forget, another very similar style to Unai. Or Florentino could just be ultra lazy, click his fingers and get Zidane out of semi retirement yet again I guess. :lol:
Real will surely go for Xabi Alonso.
 
I was thinking more his style is very similar to Valverde who Barca were happy enough to have as coach for 3-4 years.
Not really, Valverde's Bilbao back then was far closer to Barcelona's own tiki taka(Guardiola himself suggested his name for his succession) than Emery ever was, and Barcelona were definitely not happy with Valverde(to their own detriment). Plus the club is a bit of a mess right now, internal politics are kicking up

It will be interesting the direction Real Madrid go post Ancelotti. They selected Lopetegui all those years ago although it was a six months to forget, another very similar style to Unai. Or Florentino could just be ultra lazy, click his fingers and get Zidane out of semi retirement yet again I guess. :lol:
After Malitez and Lopatetico I think we're done managers who can't command absolute respect and leadership whenever they walk into the room
 
Real will surely go for Xabi Alonso.

Indeed. The next hipster type but he's getting the results to back it up at Leverkusen which is a fantastic stepping stone for him.

Liverpool will be after him post Klopp you suspect also.
 
Arteta, De Zerbi, ten Hag and Postecoglou are all better / same tier as him. Emery's good but but getting heavily overrated now, let's say Villa finish 6th or 7th, no one will claim he's the 3rd best in the lague.
Emery’s achievements in football dwarf anything these three have ever done. To be honest I don’t know that much about the sort of coach he is but I am a surprise he isn’t being named as a (next) contendor for the United job given the options out there. He’s a multiple time European trophy winner who is now doing an incredible job in the PL. Personally I’d like to see someone who can bring in a more possession oriented style so I’m not sure he’s that.
 
Did his bubble burst tonight? All well and good beating teams on the counter but if you want to win the title you have to beat parked double deckers.
 
Did his bubble burst tonight? All well and good beating teams on the counter but if you want to win the title you have to beat parked double deckers.
They are six points ahead of anyone trying to get into Europe with half a season to go. Everyone is struggling at the top but not losing. I think they will be near the top for awhile.
 
Did his bubble burst tonight? All well and good beating teams on the counter but if you want to win the title you have to beat parked double deckers.

Ole lost to Sheffield United one season didn't he?

We aren't in contention to win the league as playing as average as we did tonight against 20th team dosen't exactly suggest we'll win high pressure games to potentially go top in March-April.

The target remains top 4 and 70 + points so we're still very well placed for that.
 
Did his bubble burst tonight? All well and good beating teams on the counter but if you want to win the title you have to beat parked double deckers.

He’s overachieving by a massive margin. Second best performing team in the last 14 months.
 
I’d be gutted after last night’s result if I was a Villa fan. It’s nice to dream and top spot - even if temporary - at this stage of the season is a strong marker and a great psychological feeling.

They’re still outsiders for first, behind Liverpool, Arsenal and City, but it wouldn’t surprise me if mid-80s is enough for the title this season and Villa have been performing at that level this calendar year.

They should still be confident of top four.
 
Not sure how that game justifies saying a bubble has burst. The refs and VAR fecked them royally over last night.
 
Strange game plan to play such a suicidal high line after going 2-0 up. Oh well, it suited us today.
 
How on earth did they restrict City to 2 attempts at goal the other week? Worst defensive display I've seen in a long, long time.
 
They looked dead in last 30 minutes to be fair, I am surprised they didn't opt for keeping the result.
 
How many goals did you lose by today Emery?

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Felt like he didn't read the game well at all after they were up. If they were more pragmatic the best perhaps would have been a draw. Either way a good result for Utd.
 
He just didn’t know how to turn the tide. Bruno absolutely killed them alongside a right winger who could go on the outside
 
How on earth did they restrict City to 2 attempts at goal the other week? Worst defensive display I've seen in a long, long time.

They looked exhausted for many minutes in the games played after that one imo.
 
Still no win for him in Old Trafford after 7 attempts. Last number of games all defeats and have to go back to his days as Arsenal manager that he avoided defeat.

He was so smug on the sideline at 2-0 tonight...
 
Strange game plan to play such a suicidal high line after going 2-0 up. Oh well, it suited us today.
Yeah I'm not complaining but the space available in behind was incredible. He's done a brilliant job no doubt but that line was so obviously playing right into Bruno and Rashford's hands. It was almost like Leeds a few seasons ago :lol: .
 
They looked exhausted for many minutes in the games played after that one imo.

I can't say I've watched them. It was strange to me what they were doing.

High line with no press, I suppose that comes into the exhaustion part. The backline didn't even seem to be too well drilled with their offside trap even though they did manage to catch us offside often. They didn't seem to be aggressively stepping up in unison, just sort of standing there, and it was United's poor timing of runs more than anything that seemed to be the reason why they did catch us offside when they did.

Even a couple of long balls from the back, including one from Onana cut right through them.

I thought they were going to try and play keep ball at one point when it was 2-1 to take the sting out of things which I thought they should have but it didn't last for long. There was a point where the goalie had it kept the ball at his feet not moving, waiting for Hojlund to come, which took a long time. They passed it a couple of times before working the ball back to the 'keeper and they did it again. There was an opportunity to do it a third time but they played it forward instead into our half of the pitch and lost possession.
 
They looked extremely sluggish. It's also likely that we just match up well against them with our pacy forwards, whereas the other top sides struggle more against such a high line.
 
We completely shat the bed as soon as it went to 1-2. For a team that has generally been excellent at game managing when ahead in games against top level opposition that was a huge disappointment to witness.

Not sure why we took Pau Torres all the way up the M6 not to use him at any point as our CBs got exposed big time in the second half.

Mind you this fixture at this venue gives me PTSD like no other year in year out.
 
They looked extremely sluggish. It's also likely that we just match up well against them with our pacy forwards, whereas the other top sides struggle more against such a high line.

Fernandes always plays well v us, don't understand why we didn't change our shape to sit on him in second half. That was the problem with circulating the balls quickly out wide.
 
He's stubborn as feck with that high line. Second season in a row he's just let Ten Hag exploit it.