by It is more than nine months since a visiting team traveled to Villa Park in the Premier League and left with three points. Unai Emery’s side have won 14 consecutive home games, including Wednesday’s stunning victory over Manchester City, and in doing so have turned their stadium into the most spectacular ground in English football.
The last opponent Aston Villa beat in the Premier League was Arsenal, all the way back in February. Mikel Arteta’s players started Villa’s extraordinary run at home and, as they return to Villa Park this weekend, they look to end it.
Emery, of course, will have other ideas. Against the club that overthrew him after just 18 months in charge, the Spaniard will be as motivated as ever. He has already faced and beaten Arsenal since being sacked in November 2019, but the memories of those difficult days in north London will certainly remain fresh in his mind.
To be clear, they were difficult days for everyone at Arsenal – not just Emery. By the time of his post, the overwhelming feeling at the Emirates Stadium was overwhelming. Underperforming players, disgruntled fans, unwanted results. Something had to change, and Emery had to go.
The question is not, as many observers and pundits have asked in recent months, whether Arsenal should have given Emery more time. Instead it is worth investigating why Emery was so successful at Villa than he was at Arsenal, and what has changed since that sad period in north London.
The most important move? Power. Emery didn’t have or want it at Arsenal, but he does at Villa. The club’s structure has been effectively restructured around the 52-year-old, who has personal relationships with the owners and key allies in key positions.
He was, for example, struck to see recent images of Emery at an NBA game with co-owner Wes Edens. Emery is able to speak directly to both Edens and Nassef Sawiris, to the extent that the former chief executive, Christian Purslow, was effectively sidelined before he left earlier this year.
Emery’s position was further strengthened when Monchi was appointed as Villa’s president of football operations. Monchi and Emery worked alongside each other earlier in their careers, at Sevilla, and are known to be close. When Monchi was considering the Villa offer, Emery flew out to Spain to convince him to take the job. “Unai’s presence was almost the decisive reason for coming to Birmingham,” said Monchi.
Even more important to Emery’s success at Villa was Damian Vidagany. Now the director of football operations, Vidagany is Emery’s right-hand man and the conduit between the first team and the rest of the club.
At Arsenal, there was no Vidagany. Emery’s brother, Igor, was involved, but not as much, and certainly not with the same authority that Vidagany has. Instead of being surrounded by allies, as he is now, Emery found himself in a storm of changing executives and helpless power struggles at the Emirates.
He was appointed to work under Ivan Gazidis, the chief executive, but Gazidis left only a few months later. Emery then worked for Raul Sanllehi, Arsenal’s former head of football, and alongside Sven Mislintat, the head of recruitment. Mislintat left north London in February 2019, halfway through Emery’s first season. Arsenal then tried and failed to sign Monchi before Edu was appointed technical director later that year.
Such a chaotic environment was clearly not suitable for a man who was still getting used to the demands of British football and its culture (his struggle with English was a constant problem).
Emery didn’t exactly help himself at Arsenal, though. He arrived as head coach and focused entirely on that role. He had no sense of wanting to extend his remit, or indeed to claim any additional power. If anything, he would shy away from it: in public and in private, he would often defer any non-coaching questions to those above him. It would not be safe to say that he regularly spoke directly to the owners of the club.
At Villa, where he is focused on Emery, he plays a huge role in recruitment. Moussa Diaby was his main target, for example, and he was the one who thought to sign Alex Moreno from Real Betis. In January, the club wanted to sign a new forward – and Emery advised them to be patient and wait for the summer window. They listened to him.
At Arsenal, it was different. Emery had a say, of course, but it was only one voice — and not a very influential one. After his first season, he told Arsenal executives to sign Wilfried Zaha. Instead, they bought Nicolas Pepe. It would only happen at Villa.
From Arsenal’s point of view, the Emery era must be seen as a necessary bridge between Arsene Wenger and Arteta. Without Emery’s struggles in his second season, Arteta would not have been able to do what he did at the Emirates. The squad was such a mess, and the mood at the club was so bad, that Arteta was effectively allowed to tear the place down and rebuild from scratch.
Emery is in a different world now. A world that has been made for him, and an environment that allows him to do his work in the best way possible. At Arsenal, he was just one cog in a chaotic machine. At Villa, the machine is his machine, and he is currently working more efficiently than anyone could have imagined.
