Unai Emery is enjoying so much success as Aston Villa manager — most recently with Wednesday’s 1-0 win over Manchester City — that some people are beginning to re-evaluate his previous spell in England at Arsenal, where he was given the difficult task of following Arsene Wenger.
In the summer of 2018, the Spanish coach was hired to replace the departing Wenger, who had fallen from legend to lamented in a tenure spanning almost 22 years. What followed was a mixed bag.
Emery recorded what stands today as the third-highest win percentage in the club’s history (55%) and reached a Europa League final but he left in November 2019 with his reputation in tatters, mocked for his imperfect English and derided as incompatible with the demands of Premier League football.
Yet since succeeding Steven Gerrard at Villa Park in October last year, Emery has transformed Aston Villa to a jaw-dropping extent, rehabilitating his reputation and earmarking him as one of the division’s top coaches.
Only Manchester City (83) and Arsenal (77) have taken more points than Villa’s 75 in the calendar year of 2023. Some shrewd transfer business combined with a clear tactical plan and triggering an improvement in several existing players — most obviously striker Ollie Watkins — has catapulted Villa into the Champions League places ahead of the visit of Emery’s former side to the Midlands on Saturday.
Emery facing his successor at Arsenal, Mikel Arteta, in this revived state has led some to speculate whether the 52-year-old was harshly treated at the Emirates. So, was the job too big for him, or did the club let him down in difficult circumstances?
Sources have told ESPN that Emery impressed the Arsenal hierarchy in his interview to succeed Wenger with an in-depth knowledge of the club’s academy players, laying out specific paths to the first team for certain individuals. The level of detail in his presentation was a key factor in getting the job ahead of Arteta, in addition to a track record of Europa League success with Sevilla — winning the competition in three successive seasons between 2014 and 2016 — and so it came as something of a surprise in the weeks and months that followed just how poor his communication skills were.
Emery conducted his media interviews with a translator who sat alongside him but insisted on trying to speak English to his new squad at all times, often in lengthy video analysis meetings which were a rare occurrence during Wenger’s tenure.
