With Christmas approaching and eyes elsewhere, Aston Villa quietly slipped out an announcement that encapsulated how excited the club are about what is possible under Unai Emery.
On December 19, Chris Heck, Villa’s president of business operations, revealed on the club website that Villa had paused plans to redevelop the North Stand and increase capacity from 42,000 to more than 50,000.
Building the stand would mean reducing capacity to about 36,000 for two years, which Heck argued would mean Villa Park losing some of its impact on opponents. ‘I think it would be a bad idea to tear down one of our stands for two years playing like we are,’ said Heck.
Some wonder if this delay could affect the stadium’s chance of hosting Euro 2028 matches. Villa are confident it will not but the message is clear. The club do not want to do anything that might disrupt their trajectory under Emery, which has them a point off the top of the table ahead of tonight’s clash with Manchester United.
The initial Villa Park project was driven by former CEO Christian Purslow, who left last June.
Under Dean Smith and Steven Gerrard, about £250million was spent on transfers. But with 33,000 fans on the waiting list for season tickets, Purslow believed that accommodating more of them would ultimately make the club sustainable and not as reliant on billionaire owners Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens.
This is Emery’s show now and his idea is a little simpler: get the team into the Champions League and everything else will follow.
Funds that might previously have been used for other purposes are more likely to be channelled towards the first team and with Villa enjoying one of the best seasons in their history, it is impossible to criticise.
Villa knew that to hire a super-coach like Emery, they had to give him an enormous salary, a long contract, and a free rein.
In barely a year of the Emery era, Purslow has left and so has their sporting director, the quietly impressive Johan Lange, who is now doing a similar job at Tottenham.
And here is the crux of Villa’s gamble. As things stand, everything is perfect. They have one of the best teams in the country, marshalled by one of the world’s finest coaches, and the backing of billionaires.
American equity vehicle Atarios recently invested in Villa’s parent company V Sports, which should boost financial power.
Nobody should avoid chasing success because they fear failure and Villa took a bold step in handing control to Emery. Yet it is legitimate to wonder what the plan is if the Basque were to be lured away.
Big-name managers have big egos and Emery is no different. There could be changes at both Barcelona and Real Madrid in the summer while it remains to be seen what Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his INEOS lieutenants make of Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag.
Though Emery’s commitment to Villa is not in doubt, that does not stop one of Spain’s big two or an English rival picking up the phone, and tonight’s match is the perfect chance for Ratcliffe to compare Ten Hag with Emery. What happens to Emery’s staff when eventually he leaves? If they follow him to his next job, there will be quite a rebuilding project for Sawiris, Edens and those who remain.
Emery allies fill the key posts: Damia Vidagany is director of football operations, and renowned transfer chief Monchi president of football operations.
Vidagany is a savvy operator who has a natural feel for the political weather at a club and knows which buttons to press. Though Heck controls the business side, everyone knows whose club this is now. What Unai wants, Unai gets.
That is why the wage bill has rocketed. Before leaving for Manchester City in 2021, Jack Grealish was the only Villa player earning £100,000 per week. Since Emery arrived, Tyrone Mings, Ezri Konsa, Ollie Watkins and John McGinn have all signed new contracts on much larger salaries. Villa broke their transfer record to sign Moussa Diaby from Bayer Leverkusen for £45m and gave him massive wages too. They will spend again next summer.
Villa have bet the farm on Emery and so far, it is paying off spectacularly. Pound for pound, he has surely been the best coach in the Premier League since he returned to England, after an unhappy 18-month spell at Arsenal that ended in November 2019.
They played world champions Manchester City off the park on December 6 and Pep Guardiola was moved to call Villa title challengers, though Emery insists there are seven sides stronger than his.
It is a mystery that United and Chelsea never made a serious play for Emery when he was turning Villarreal into Europa League winners and then Champions League semi-finalists.
Newcastle nearly hired him in November 2021, when they were in a relegation battle. Villa were in the same boat when they made their move a year later. Watching Emery’s work at Villa, England’s most successful clubs of modern times might wonder how they let him slip through their fingers.
The 52-year-old’s track record — 11 trophies with Sevilla, Paris Saint-Germain and Villarreal –— is there for all to see.
But if Emery should suddenly be tempted away, what then for Villa?
When they meet tonight United could tell them all about that, as they are still trying to recover from the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson more than a decade ago.
As fabulous as life is for Villa right now, they must not become so giddy about the present that they lose sight of the bigger picture.