Five hundred and sixty-nine days before, Aston Villa were 15th in the Premier League and three points above the relegation zone.
Five hundred and sixty-nine days before, Unai Emery was appointed Aston Villa manager. The ambition was not to ensure survival — his coaching eminence meant this was practically a guarantee — but to reshape on-pitch performance and team culture.
In under 15 months, Villa have been transformed. The fear of the Championship has been replaced by the immediacy of Champions League football. If judging a manager is to measure how much juice they can squeeze out of their squad, then Emery has extracted every last drop.
It is the first time in 41 years Villa have qualified for the continent’s blue-chip competition, last playing in the European Cup, as it was known, in 1983. Emery, the staff introduced and the players who have so profoundly brought into new methods have earned their rewards.
Even if Emery was insistent he would only watch one game on Tuesday — video footage from the 3-3 draw against Liverpool — he allowed himself a look at the big screen in the minutes before Champions League qualification was sealed.
He and the players were at Villa Park, attending the club’s end-of-season awards. Phones buzzed on tables throughout the evening and the game, on different screens and different devices, big and small, was being streamed.
Manchester City’s 2-0 victory against Tottenham Hotspur meant Villa could not be caught. When the moment of validation and, from the owners’ standpoint, vindication arrived, players reached for their phones to film the celebrations. Prince William, the Prince of Wales, offered his immediate congratulations. Emiliano Martinez had taken off his blazer, with his white shirt soaked in champagne, having sprayed all those nearby.
Emery, meanwhile, aptly sat next to Monchi, the president of football operations, and Damian Vidagany, the director of football and a close friend, punching the air with exultation. There, on that table, the power triangle had accomplished what they hoped was possible 569 days before.
THIS MOMENT. pic.twitter.com/y5aLjEsq6t
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) May 14, 2024
Villa’s achievement is a refreshing reminder that the monopoly of the supposed ‘Big Six’ can be cracked. Villa want to dine at the top table, from a footballing point of view and politically — they abstained from the Premier League’s spending cap proposal last month and want restrictions eased on profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) — so this is not necessarily a case of minnows competing among giants.
Still, it is a demonstration of what a cultural footballing reset, when performed properly, can do. The swiftness of transformation is achieved by getting every decision right, accelerating the process in which a club moves upward.
Emery’s coaching is elite and among the world’s best. Those close to him put only Pep Guardiola in a higher pantheon. He has installed an elite-level mentality through his desire to improve players individually — and that is what separates a good coach from a great one.
Six players who started Steven Gerrard’s final game away to Fulham lined up on Monday night against Liverpool. Emery was supported in his only summer window by adding marquee additions such as Pau Torres, Youri Tielemans and Moussa Diaby. But the team’s spine, by and large, remains the same.
The quickest and simplest route to reset a culture is to have a high-level coach. Villa’s owners, Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris, continue to recognise that by giving Emery everything he wants. The painstaking hours spent in conference rooms at hotels studying footage of opposition, sometimes in three separate meetings before a Sunday 2pm kick-off, are rewarded by results on the pitch. Emery is a workaholic. Players and staff follow his lead, knowing hard work engenders success and, ultimately, Champions League football.
Exhaustive preparations are an example of the level of detail for which Villa now strive, extracting every marginal gain possible. Such discipline requires an inherent faith in Emery’s project from all those connected with the first team. It goes to show that a middling club with ambitions to play in the higher leagues can happen, regardless of the perceived increasing gap between the ‘Big Six’ and the rest.
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It does, though, need consistent habits, unwavering belief and a great coach who has a conducive support network. In Monchi, Vidagany and more than two dozen Spanish-speaking staff, Emery has the environment that brings out the best in him.
Contrary to broader perception, that is why links to a ‘bigger job’ are, for now, futile. Emery’s fingerprints are discernible all over the training ground. Edens and Sawiris are happy to afford their head coach such a level of control without the fear of a bolt-out-of-the-blue divorce because they believe he is in it for the long haul.
They want Emery to build a dynasty comparable to Arsene Wenger at Arsenal or Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United. Fanciful? Perhaps. Nonetheless, it demonstrates total confidence and explains why they intend to meet Emery this summer to discuss a longer contract beyond 2027.
Expectations have been elevated and Villa’s footballing environment is distinctive from the rest of the club, which has significant scope for improvement. The business operations need to play catch-up, having flown by the seat of its pants in matching Emery and the players’ steep progression. Ensuring Villa are best in class across all departments is the next challenge.
Emery’s Villa have lasted the course and broken into the Champions League. It should be an example to others that through high-level coaching, well-defined habits and clear leadership, cracking open the Premier League’s ‘Big Six’ is within reach.
(Top photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
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