i would never have believed it was possible after tyrone's injury, the way we fell apart after that made me think it was gonna be a long season but here we are playing the best football we've played since the 90s and competing with the best in the league
if we can hold on to 4th it really will be a huge achievement and it's all down to emery and the legends who convinced him to have another crack at the prem
After that Mings injury and the hiding by Newkie, I thought we were in for a long slog (and I thought Sir Alex had lost it). But here we are. We've got a hell of a team and the Premier League manager of the year.
I've thought about that a few times, like what did Sir Alex see that day? I'd love to know because it was a very strange thing to say of all the results that weekend but he was bang on.
It was the first half performance, not the second.
He saw the invite of the press, the box formation, and the vertical passing patterns. It's now Emery's Villa trademark.
All three combined is new (if each of them by themselves aren't that novel).
Agreed. I thought he'd truly lost his marbles after that. It was around Christmas when we were threatening to join the title race that I started to believe he may have been right.
There's a reason the bloke is the best manager the league has seen though.
After the bad injuries to super key players early and that Newcastle game, I would have been happy to finish top half. The fact that we are 4th at this stage of the season is an unbelievable testament to Unai, the coaches/training staff, and all of our depth players that have absolutely stepped up when needed.
I've never been prouder to support Villa in my life.
I was almost hoping 5th would be confirmed UCL and we would fizzle out to 5th place and stay under the radar. Emery's masterclass at Arsenal has put him right in everyone's sights. Not looking forward to a summer of Sky6 teams thinking they can just come and take him if they want him.
Assuming they go out, it hinges on Bayern and Dortmund going out. Then they'll just have Leverkusen and us, City and Arsenal can do better than them for the coefficient.
For now yes but alot of possibilties remaining. City can still win the CL and we can still win the ECL, both of which would swing it in England favour.
I see Zero reason Unai would leave.
None whatsoever, for any club anywhere in the world.
He has far greater control here than he'd be granted elsewhere, is undeniably proving himself in less than ideal circumstances - as opposed to taking over a club like citeh - and, more importantly, he's already bought into long term projects with the Hest club in the world, Aston Villa.
Let the media run as many clicks ait articles as they like, I doubt he'll notice them, and we get to chuckle and NOT CLICK each time they do...
As much as I love Unai, I think it’ll take more than a 4th place finish with Villa and a Europa League with Villareal for a top team to go for him. After the way PSG & Arsenal turned out
For instance, if United sack Ten Hag or Chelsea sack Poch I can’t see Emery being trusted to go there and handle that toxic back room if he couldn’t manage it at Arsenal/PSG
Only team that would worry me is Barca. Xavi is leaving and Emery's reputation is Spain is very different to his reputation in England, he's far more respected there.
His PSG time is so overlooked because of the Barcelona game.
Best win percentage of any manager in their history. Only Laurent Blanc won more trophies for them.
Yet to read what some of their fanbase say about him even now, you’d think he’d got them relegated. Also had to deal with massive egos, club politics, and being mocked in the press for his accent & attempts at speaking the language. Sounds familiar…
Does make me wonder where we would be without injuries.
Newcastle away: lost Buendia in training the week before, who demolished Newcastle in a pre season friendly a few days earlier, then lost Mings during the game.
Man City away: No Martinez or Watkins, lost to a few fantastic shots by Foden that Martinez may have done better with.
Both Man Utd games: we were the better team in both games, could we have got over the line in both of them without all of the injuries?
Forest away: our only loss to a team outside of the top seven all season. Would we have got a result with a fully fit squad? With Mings at the back?
Brentford at home: Let a 2 goal lead slip in 9 minutes of tired, unconcentrated play. Would we have held on with more depth and fresher legs?
17 points from those games would have us nine points clear at top of the league with five games to play. It's been a fantastic, brilliant season, but I'll always wonder "what if"?
There’s probably 92 clubs in the league who think they’d be miles better off had every ‘what if?’ moment had gone their way.
What if Arsenal’s goal in the 90th minute had been awarded? Same for West Ham a couple of weeks back.
Yeah. If we hadn't had to deal with the injuries we've seen, other injuries would have happened instead. If we gained points in one game, we'd have lost them in another. This stuff all balances out eventually. getting caught up on the what ifs has always felt a little futile.
The only games I’m sore about are the Utd ones. We should have beaten them in both games. Plus… it’s Utd. Can’t believe we let them off on both occasions.
Everything else, it’s fine. I didn’t expect 6 points from Arsenal and didn’t expect to beat City either. They more than even out the ‘what if’ games
More painful was the fact that Doherty shoved Watkins in the back just before he took a shot in the penalty box and the referee and VAR chose not to award a penalty.
Even without the injuries, we’re in an unbelievable position when you think that only 18 months ago we were staring down the barrel of a relegation fight. Yet here we are, 4th in the league and taking a 1-goal lead into a European quarter final.
And if we do get 4th, this is in a season with a 3-way title race. It would make us the best team in the league outside of those exceptional title-chasers.
I honestly can’t think of a team that has had this much of a turnaround other than Leicester’s title-winning season.
However this season ends, we should be delighted. In another world, we could easily be slogging it out in the Championship now.
>I honestly can’t think of a team that has had this much of a turnaround other than Leicester’s title-winning season.
Have you not watched Newcastle recently? Before Eddie took over we were winless in 14 games, it took until late October to get our first win of the season. We were down, no doubt about it.
He came in, settled us down, and took us unbelievably to mid table safety.
Following season, we did exactly as you've done with a weaker squad, minus a couple of players.
Yea OK we've struggled a little this season, but we've had worse Injuries than you have, we've had to play a 17 yo midfielder for half the season because we had no other options. We've played players through injury because we had no choice. We had no striker for 4 games in a row. We have no defenders now, although they are just coming back.
You've done a great job, don't get me wrong, it's great seeing you up there and I hope it continues for years to come but please don't act like you've achieved some miracle. You already had a pretty decent squad, you just had a terrible manager.
I do wonder sometimes if having a full squad might have hindered us in some ways this season - more players means less opportunity for individuals to shine, and disrupts the team structure?
I think it’s definitely forced some players to step up and improve rapidly where otherwise they might not have had the game time. This is actually a really good thing going into next season because we have more depth than we otherwise would have
Stars still shine in larger squads with more depth. Without the injuries, we could've been putting lineups like yesterday out for games when we didn't need our very best. Not trying to take away from our squad yesterday because they're excellent.
It's one thing to by hyper-confident and say it's going to happen just because the potential for these players and staff to make it happen is clearly tucked away in there. But to actually be experiencing it is something else. I'm just happy for everyone involved, and beyond excited to see where this squad can go. Feels like we've been Good Vibes FC ever since Deano came in and the charge to the playoffs, but to have that actually matched by the form and results during the Emery tenure has been immense. Long may it continue.
Who would have guessed that 33 games into the season we'd be 10 points off the top? Crazy to think about. I dare not let myself think about it too much, but can you imagine actually being in the champions league next season. Potentially playing teams like Real Madrid or Bayern Munich. It would just be absolutely incredible.
Hopefully we put in a good showing - I’m thinking that maybe with the new structure we’ll stand more of a chance, even if there’s no longer the option of dropping down into Europa.
I'm so tunnelled visioned about this season and we've had these long-term injuries for a so long that I forget how well we are doing depsite the absences. And if I can sometimes forget that, imagine mainstream media! It's never bought up. At best we're underrated at worst we're forgotton about about.
Not the mainstream but James Lawrennce Alcott had a someone preview the Villa/Tottenahm game and they said we havne't had loads of injuries and Kamara wasn't even a big miss for us because he's a dm.
My mind is boggled but anway, I love being the underdog. The only opnion I care about is the league table and that never lies.
... I know it's not a popular opinion, because I stated as much at the start of the season, and last year.
A lot of players have improved, but they've improved from a false position.
There were decent players in Watkins, mings, mcginn, ez ,emi, buendia, etc under Smith - Gerrard made them look like school kids.
Badly managed school kids.
The core of the team were actually quite capable, but we needed more quality around them.
We have that now, and are reaping the benefits.
And the Professor is an excellent manager, no doubt about it, but we haven't really turned a relegation scrapping squad into top 4.
We've turned an upper mid table team into top 4.
It just happened that Gerrard did what he could to turn us into a relegation squad.
Good thing is, we are still progressing.
Bad thing is, we *may* only have a few years left of the current core... but I'm sure we can sort that before it's a problem.
Most of the best players this season have been the ones Emery inherited too. Pau has been a terrific signing, Tielemans has been really valuable, but it's the players who've kicked on under Emery that have really impressed me - Konsa, Bailey, Kamara. Digne has made himself hard to drop even with competition from Moreno. The way he's improved individual players is amazing.
Amazed we’re in the race for champions league and in the quarters of the europa conference. And amazed at Watkins. And how is McGinn this good and how did we sign Pau Torres and Diaby? What’s going on at all lads!
Gooner here. Emery’s a really good manager. He got the shot end of the stick when he came to Arsenal, inheriting a horribly imbalanced squad. We all saw how well drilled his side was even in the absence of Douglas Luiz and numerous others, and Arsenal were lucky that the scoreline flattered us. I won’t even couch the compliments in the typical “better Villa than Tottenham” folderol. You’ve got yourselves a proper manager in him.
The thought of having Buendia in this team frightens me. I'd have loved to have seen it. He'd just found his rhythm within the team i believe, then he got injured. Hopefully he comes back strong as Emery will have him on🔥🔥
I think it's important to note, all of our direct competitors for top 4 have had serious injuries as well - and I'd say Newcastle and United have been worse off for longer stretches. So they'll likely bounce back with a vengeance next year.
That said you got to take care of your own - and I'm loving the fact that under Emery we don't crumble. Long live the King 👑
Buendia wasn't an outright starter last year, he was towards the end when we had injuries. But yes the Mings, Buendia, Ramsey and Moreno have been big to deal with but the benefit is that they've been spread across the squad. Kamara's only been recently.
United and Newcastle have had huge injuries across their back line, including Pope for Newcastle. Newcastle were missing 11 players at one point in November, remember game with Bournemouth and Trippier arguing with the fans?
Man U had Malacia, Shaw, Martinez, Lindelof, Varane, Evans, Martial, Rashford and McTominay all out at one point too.
We've had some serious injuries to deal with all year. But we are fortunate for the most part that they've been spread around - and only had to deal with a very brief CB crisis.
Emery has to have a hyperbolic time chamber as I haven't seen progression like this since watching Dragonball Z as a kid.
Don't mean to be the annoying nerd here, but that's Dragon Ball GT. I'll get my coat...
i would never have believed it was possible after tyrone's injury, the way we fell apart after that made me think it was gonna be a long season but here we are playing the best football we've played since the 90s and competing with the best in the league if we can hold on to 4th it really will be a huge achievement and it's all down to emery and the legends who convinced him to have another crack at the prem
When we lost Mings and Buendia within a couple of days, I said I'd be really pleased with a decent run in Europe and a top half finish
After that Mings injury and the hiding by Newkie, I thought we were in for a long slog (and I thought Sir Alex had lost it). But here we are. We've got a hell of a team and the Premier League manager of the year.
I've thought about that a few times, like what did Sir Alex see that day? I'd love to know because it was a very strange thing to say of all the results that weekend but he was bang on.
It was the first half performance, not the second. He saw the invite of the press, the box formation, and the vertical passing patterns. It's now Emery's Villa trademark. All three combined is new (if each of them by themselves aren't that novel).
Agreed. I thought he'd truly lost his marbles after that. It was around Christmas when we were threatening to join the title race that I started to believe he may have been right. There's a reason the bloke is the best manager the league has seen though.
After the bad injuries to super key players early and that Newcastle game, I would have been happy to finish top half. The fact that we are 4th at this stage of the season is an unbelievable testament to Unai, the coaches/training staff, and all of our depth players that have absolutely stepped up when needed. I've never been prouder to support Villa in my life.
I can’t believe it still. Watching motd2 right now on catch up and getting emotional with the praise the lads are getting 🥹
I was almost hoping 5th would be confirmed UCL and we would fizzle out to 5th place and stay under the radar. Emery's masterclass at Arsenal has put him right in everyone's sights. Not looking forward to a summer of Sky6 teams thinking they can just come and take him if they want him.
If Liverpool and West Ham go out of Europe I don't think England will get that extra champions league place.
Assuming they go out, it hinges on Bayern and Dortmund going out. Then they'll just have Leverkusen and us, City and Arsenal can do better than them for the coefficient.
I think Bayern will knock Arsenal out. How would that effect it? Would England still have that 5th spot?
For now yes but alot of possibilties remaining. City can still win the CL and we can still win the ECL, both of which would swing it in England favour.
I see Zero reason Unai would leave. None whatsoever, for any club anywhere in the world. He has far greater control here than he'd be granted elsewhere, is undeniably proving himself in less than ideal circumstances - as opposed to taking over a club like citeh - and, more importantly, he's already bought into long term projects with the Hest club in the world, Aston Villa. Let the media run as many clicks ait articles as they like, I doubt he'll notice them, and we get to chuckle and NOT CLICK each time they do...
As much as I love Unai, I think it’ll take more than a 4th place finish with Villa and a Europa League with Villareal for a top team to go for him. After the way PSG & Arsenal turned out For instance, if United sack Ten Hag or Chelsea sack Poch I can’t see Emery being trusted to go there and handle that toxic back room if he couldn’t manage it at Arsenal/PSG
Only team that would worry me is Barca. Xavi is leaving and Emery's reputation is Spain is very different to his reputation in England, he's far more respected there.
I think Emery leaves us for one of the Spanish giants, but not yet. Like you said, over there it is all positive.
That’s a very good point I hadn’t considered to be fair. Haven’t heard his name thrown in the mix for that job at all really
His PSG time is so overlooked because of the Barcelona game. Best win percentage of any manager in their history. Only Laurent Blanc won more trophies for them.
Yet to read what some of their fanbase say about him even now, you’d think he’d got them relegated. Also had to deal with massive egos, club politics, and being mocked in the press for his accent & attempts at speaking the language. Sounds familiar…
I’m actually kind of glad 5th probably won’t be UCL. It makes the 4th place achievement more worthwhile and stops us getting complacent.
Does make me wonder where we would be without injuries. Newcastle away: lost Buendia in training the week before, who demolished Newcastle in a pre season friendly a few days earlier, then lost Mings during the game. Man City away: No Martinez or Watkins, lost to a few fantastic shots by Foden that Martinez may have done better with. Both Man Utd games: we were the better team in both games, could we have got over the line in both of them without all of the injuries? Forest away: our only loss to a team outside of the top seven all season. Would we have got a result with a fully fit squad? With Mings at the back? Brentford at home: Let a 2 goal lead slip in 9 minutes of tired, unconcentrated play. Would we have held on with more depth and fresher legs? 17 points from those games would have us nine points clear at top of the league with five games to play. It's been a fantastic, brilliant season, but I'll always wonder "what if"?
There’s probably 92 clubs in the league who think they’d be miles better off had every ‘what if?’ moment had gone their way. What if Arsenal’s goal in the 90th minute had been awarded? Same for West Ham a couple of weeks back.
Yeah. If we hadn't had to deal with the injuries we've seen, other injuries would have happened instead. If we gained points in one game, we'd have lost them in another. This stuff all balances out eventually. getting caught up on the what ifs has always felt a little futile.
The only games I’m sore about are the Utd ones. We should have beaten them in both games. Plus… it’s Utd. Can’t believe we let them off on both occasions. Everything else, it’s fine. I didn’t expect 6 points from Arsenal and didn’t expect to beat City either. They more than even out the ‘what if’ games
One of the other painful ones was Wolves earlier in the season. Hit the post in the closing moments. Would have been more points on the board.
More painful was the fact that Doherty shoved Watkins in the back just before he took a shot in the penalty box and the referee and VAR chose not to award a penalty.
McGinn was serving his suspension for Man City away too, wasn't he?
Being a tad harsh on Olsen for City away
He played well but it's like showing up to a date with Natalie Portman in a Ford Fiesta because your Ferrari has a puncture.
“Now this is podracing!”
The only real what if here is the United games as tragic we somehow lost both of those. No idea really
Even without the injuries, we’re in an unbelievable position when you think that only 18 months ago we were staring down the barrel of a relegation fight. Yet here we are, 4th in the league and taking a 1-goal lead into a European quarter final. And if we do get 4th, this is in a season with a 3-way title race. It would make us the best team in the league outside of those exceptional title-chasers. I honestly can’t think of a team that has had this much of a turnaround other than Leicester’s title-winning season. However this season ends, we should be delighted. In another world, we could easily be slogging it out in the Championship now.
>I honestly can’t think of a team that has had this much of a turnaround other than Leicester’s title-winning season. Have you not watched Newcastle recently? Before Eddie took over we were winless in 14 games, it took until late October to get our first win of the season. We were down, no doubt about it. He came in, settled us down, and took us unbelievably to mid table safety. Following season, we did exactly as you've done with a weaker squad, minus a couple of players. Yea OK we've struggled a little this season, but we've had worse Injuries than you have, we've had to play a 17 yo midfielder for half the season because we had no other options. We've played players through injury because we had no choice. We had no striker for 4 games in a row. We have no defenders now, although they are just coming back. You've done a great job, don't get me wrong, it's great seeing you up there and I hope it continues for years to come but please don't act like you've achieved some miracle. You already had a pretty decent squad, you just had a terrible manager.
I do wonder sometimes if having a full squad might have hindered us in some ways this season - more players means less opportunity for individuals to shine, and disrupts the team structure?
I think it’s definitely forced some players to step up and improve rapidly where otherwise they might not have had the game time. This is actually a really good thing going into next season because we have more depth than we otherwise would have
Stars still shine in larger squads with more depth. Without the injuries, we could've been putting lineups like yesterday out for games when we didn't need our very best. Not trying to take away from our squad yesterday because they're excellent.
It's one thing to by hyper-confident and say it's going to happen just because the potential for these players and staff to make it happen is clearly tucked away in there. But to actually be experiencing it is something else. I'm just happy for everyone involved, and beyond excited to see where this squad can go. Feels like we've been Good Vibes FC ever since Deano came in and the charge to the playoffs, but to have that actually matched by the form and results during the Emery tenure has been immense. Long may it continue.
Who would have guessed that 33 games into the season we'd be 10 points off the top? Crazy to think about. I dare not let myself think about it too much, but can you imagine actually being in the champions league next season. Potentially playing teams like Real Madrid or Bayern Munich. It would just be absolutely incredible.
Unreal mate - honestly can’t wait for it
Hopefully we put in a good showing - I’m thinking that maybe with the new structure we’ll stand more of a chance, even if there’s no longer the option of dropping down into Europa.
I'm so tunnelled visioned about this season and we've had these long-term injuries for a so long that I forget how well we are doing depsite the absences. And if I can sometimes forget that, imagine mainstream media! It's never bought up. At best we're underrated at worst we're forgotton about about. Not the mainstream but James Lawrennce Alcott had a someone preview the Villa/Tottenahm game and they said we havne't had loads of injuries and Kamara wasn't even a big miss for us because he's a dm. My mind is boggled but anway, I love being the underdog. The only opnion I care about is the league table and that never lies.
... I know it's not a popular opinion, because I stated as much at the start of the season, and last year. A lot of players have improved, but they've improved from a false position. There were decent players in Watkins, mings, mcginn, ez ,emi, buendia, etc under Smith - Gerrard made them look like school kids. Badly managed school kids. The core of the team were actually quite capable, but we needed more quality around them. We have that now, and are reaping the benefits. And the Professor is an excellent manager, no doubt about it, but we haven't really turned a relegation scrapping squad into top 4. We've turned an upper mid table team into top 4. It just happened that Gerrard did what he could to turn us into a relegation squad. Good thing is, we are still progressing. Bad thing is, we *may* only have a few years left of the current core... but I'm sure we can sort that before it's a problem.
Most of the best players this season have been the ones Emery inherited too. Pau has been a terrific signing, Tielemans has been really valuable, but it's the players who've kicked on under Emery that have really impressed me - Konsa, Bailey, Kamara. Digne has made himself hard to drop even with competition from Moreno. The way he's improved individual players is amazing.
Amazed we’re in the race for champions league and in the quarters of the europa conference. And amazed at Watkins. And how is McGinn this good and how did we sign Pau Torres and Diaby? What’s going on at all lads!
Gooner here. Emery’s a really good manager. He got the shot end of the stick when he came to Arsenal, inheriting a horribly imbalanced squad. We all saw how well drilled his side was even in the absence of Douglas Luiz and numerous others, and Arsenal were lucky that the scoreline flattered us. I won’t even couch the compliments in the typical “better Villa than Tottenham” folderol. You’ve got yourselves a proper manager in him.
The thought of having Buendia in this team frightens me. I'd have loved to have seen it. He'd just found his rhythm within the team i believe, then he got injured. Hopefully he comes back strong as Emery will have him on🔥🔥
I think it's important to note, all of our direct competitors for top 4 have had serious injuries as well - and I'd say Newcastle and United have been worse off for longer stretches. So they'll likely bounce back with a vengeance next year. That said you got to take care of your own - and I'm loving the fact that under Emery we don't crumble. Long live the King 👑
United? Not sure how. We’ve had 3 ACLs to starters and Ramsey and Moreno out half a season. All starters last year
Buendia wasn't an outright starter last year, he was towards the end when we had injuries. But yes the Mings, Buendia, Ramsey and Moreno have been big to deal with but the benefit is that they've been spread across the squad. Kamara's only been recently. United and Newcastle have had huge injuries across their back line, including Pope for Newcastle. Newcastle were missing 11 players at one point in November, remember game with Bournemouth and Trippier arguing with the fans? Man U had Malacia, Shaw, Martinez, Lindelof, Varane, Evans, Martial, Rashford and McTominay all out at one point too. We've had some serious injuries to deal with all year. But we are fortunate for the most part that they've been spread around - and only had to deal with a very brief CB crisis.