Unai Emery's Steady Approach Amidst Villa's Challenges
Unai Emery spent Saturday on the touchline at Hull kicking every ball, living every pass. Inside, though, nothing has changed. The man who prowls the technical area is still the calmest figure in the building once the doors close.
His players know the drill by now. Win, lose or draw, the most demanding voice in the room belongs to the head coach – and often he is harsher after victory than defeat. John McGinn likes to tell the story of the one time Emery snapped at half-time early in his reign. Not because Villa were poor, but because he saw his captain tearing into teammates. For Emery, McGinn was wasting energy, venting instead of fixing.
They have all been here before.
Ahead of schedule – just about
This time last season, Villa had nothing to show in the Premier League. No points, no goals, still 157 minutes away from their first strike of the campaign. They ended that year in the Champions League places and in Europe again. By comparison, a goalless draw at Hull feels almost comfortable.
It was not pretty. It was not especially entertaining. But it was not panic material either. There were enough signs – enough “green shoots”, as coaches like to say – for Emery to sound convinced they can once more punch above their supposed weight.
It is hard to argue with a manager who has already delivered the most successful spell the club has known in modern times. “When we started the project here, the ambition we had, it was [not even] in our highest expectations to be in Europe four years in a row,” Emery said. “It was very difficult when we started working together but it was the ambition of the owner. We set our standards high with the players to be there and we are. Now is the moment to remember how we got here and the way we did. Now it is a different moment and chapter.”
A new chapter, same method.
The meetings, the details, the grind
When results wobble, Emery does not tear everything up. He doubles down. Last season, Villa did not win a game in any competition until their seventh outing. McGinn finally broke that run with the only goal in a Europa League tie against Bologna.
The day followed a familiar script. Players reported around 11.30am for one of Emery’s forensic opposition analysis sessions. They know them so well now that, as McGinn has joked, they “walk in like robots”.
Emery obsesses over positioning and tiny tactical details. Every movement has a purpose, every angle a correction. One player, Jhon Durán – now on loan at Benfica from Al-Nassr after spells with Fenerbahce and Zenit St Petersburg – remains notorious at Bodymoor Heath as the only man to have asked to leave in the middle of one of those meetings.
On Tuesday, those details get their latest examination. Villa meet Club Brugge for the fourth time in two years, hoping European competition will again light the fuse under a stuttering start.
Last September, the Bologna win sparked a run of 17 victories in 19 matches. Half of the 14 players involved that night have since moved on, but one survivor, Emiliano Buendía, believes the new-look group can find a similar gear.
“It has not been the start we wanted, but we are trying to take the positive things from every match,” said the Argentinian, who has started all four of Villa’s games this season. “We will try to change this momentum in terms of results and try to get our confidence back to perform well and [achieve] the results we want.”
Europe as the proving ground
Another Champions League campaign is no birthright. Villa had to win the Europa League last season to get here, a feat that arguably tops anything Emery has done in Birmingham so far. That journey, and the strides the club has taken under him, will be on the minds of supporters as they wander the cobbles of Bruges this week and, later in the autumn, the streets of Barcelona.
Emery is energised by it all. The workload is brutal, so he steals what rest he can. “Sometimes I need a good nap, after intensive work in the morning,” he said with a smile at Bodymoor Heath last week.
For now, George Hemmings carries the dubious honour of having Villa’s only shot on target this league campaign, a 13th‑minute effort at Hull. In the same match, the 19-year-old – signed from Nottingham Forest at 16 – slid a perfect ball through for Buendía, only for the chance to go begging.
It is easy to fixate on the lack of goals. Yet Villa have already shown a different face this season. They went toe-to-toe in the Super Cup with Paris Saint-Germain, a side Emery happily labels “the best team on the planet”. That defeat came less than a month ago. Since then, the squad has only grown deeper.
New faces, old patience
Among the 11 summer arrivals, Ibrahim Mbaye stands out as one of the most intriguing. The 18-year-old was an unused substitute for PSG in Salzburg but did enough to persuade Villa to move. Another summer signing, Johan Manzambi, is working his way back from a knee injury and could feature as early as Saturday’s meeting with Nottingham Forest.
At Hull, only two of the new recruits – goalkeeper Zion Suzuki and forward Nicolas Jackson – made the starting XI. Matteo Ruggeri, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Alejandro Garnacho all came off the bench. Taylor Harwood-Bellis, a £25m signing left out of Villa’s Champions League squad, watched from the stands. João Gomes saw his debut end early with a red card. Leon Goretzka, signed on a free after leaving Bayern Munich, will not be seen until at least October because of a knee setback.
None of this particularly troubles Emery. He rarely throws signings straight into the deep end. Youri Tielemans had to wait four months for his first Villa start; he is now one of the non-negotiables on Emery’s teamsheet.
The standards are relentless. For the players, and for the manager himself. “In football, if you are expecting transition, maybe you are not in the right way,” he said last month. “We have to rebuild the team as fast as possible. I don’t know if we need time or not. We are progressing – still not enough because we are not getting good results – but tomorrow is a new test in Europe.”
Hull was flat, the numbers are worrying, and the margins are thin. But Emery has seen worse starts turn into something spectacular. The next clue arrives in Bruges.
