Unai Emery factor hangs over the summer – and Erik ten Hag’s uncertain future
Unai Emery is a dangerous man – or rather, one should say that the track record of the Basque coach since the day he walked into Aston Villa on 4 November 2022, asks some distinctly difficult questions of his managerial peers.
The last Premier League manager left standing in Europe, and currently in position for what might be the fourth and final Champions League place, it has been another excellent week for Emery. His former club, the erstwhile league pacesetters Arsenal were beaten away on Sunday. A tricky European assignment at Lille in the Europa Conference League on Thursday night was navigated finally with recourse to penalties. He faces his fellow Basque Andoni Iraola on Sunday with both men having burnished that region’s current reputation for producing some of the best football managers in Europe.
In the twilight of Steven Gerrard’s final defeat as Villa manager, the club were out of the relegation zone on goals scored alone and had just nine points from 11 games, accumulated at a rate of 0.8 a game. In this, his first full season, Emery has more than doubled that to 1.9 on what was roughly only the ninth highest net spend in the Premier League last summer. He has been the outstanding managerial hire of the last two seasons and as the pieces move again this summer, he has set the bar very high indeed.
Emery, one might say, was coming from a very low base, and the scope for improvement was great for a shrewd coach in his peak years taking over from a rookie Premier League manager. Even so, the Villa transformation from the end of October 2022 demonstrates what can be accomplished when you get the right man.
When Gerrard was sacked, Villa were 10 points behind United, then in fifth. Erik ten Hag would lead United to third that season on 1.97 points per game. Once he had taken over from the two-game caretaker regime, Emery’s 25 Premier League games last season yielded 1.96 points per game. The signs were very clear from early on that this was a strong choice. Emery’s Villa defeated United in his first game in charge in early November. Since the start of this season, their paths have truly diverged.
Ten Hag’s United have dropped to 1.6 points per game. Under Emery, on 1.9 points per game, Villa are 13 points better off than the United manager and in the Champions League spot that many would consider a minimum requirement for Ten Hag.
All pertinent now, because as some of the biggest clubs in Europe potentially look to new appointments, many will be wondering: where is our Emery? They may even be considering whether their Emery is, indeed, Emery himself, although one suspects Villa would have something to say about that too. A distinctive style of play, clear improvement of individuals, good performances in cups and league. All these things Emery has brought to Villa would figure high on any list of requirements.
Ten Hag goes into the FA Cup semi-final against Coventry City, to whom defeat would register as one of the great Cup shocks, at a low ebb. Two wins in his last nine games after a much better start to 2024 have been beset by all the usual issues concerning a lack of identity to the style of play, erratic performances and a general sense of drift. Yet no favourite has truly emerged to replace him yet, if replace him is, indeed, what Ineos plan to do. Certainly the arrival of Jason Wilcox as technical director to join new chief executive Omar Berrada and, likely Dan Ashworth on his way soon, would all point to the wheels being in motion.
Yet others with a declared interest appointing a new manager are also taking their time. Liverpool and Bayern Munich are both yet to make a move for next season after fairly long lead-in times. Xabi Alonso has elected to stay at Bayer Leverkusen. Bayern’s plan to reunite with Julian Nagelsmann was swiftly curtailed this week when the German Football Association [DFB] decided that it would rather not have the issue overshadow the Euros this summer and extended his contract to 2026.
There have been times when the outstanding candidate for a club has been obvious: Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool in 2015 and likely Rafael Benitez in 2004. So too Jose Mourinho, for Chelsea in 2004, a Champions League winner the previous season. Manchester City built the club to accommodate the appointment of Pep Guardiola, even to the extent of using Manuel Pellegrini as a kind of place-holder for the intervening years.
This summer clubs are obliged to think a bit harder and re-examine the careers of those who might previously have been perceived to have failed, or simply feel unsuitable. Of course, the first step to managing United or Liverpool is to project one’s self as befitting of the office, although it does not always require a glittering track record.
Emery’s Arsenal misadventure, at a club ill-equipped at the time to support a manager who was not Arsene Wenger, proved to be the anomaly in his career rather than the rule. Just as Klopp’s final season at Borussia Dortmund, with a seventh-place Bundesliga finish, was the outlier rather than the preface to some kind of career decline. There are many out there who may have similar kinds of wrong-turns that do not necessarily indicate the bigger picture of their career.
Emery was an inspired appointment for Villa. Just as, for instance, Mohamed Salah, largely overlooked by Premier League clubs in 2017 because of his time at Chelsea, was a great signing for Liverpool. The Emery factor hangs over the summer. The answer is out there for these clubs seeking a manager: they just need the clarity of purpose to see it.
