Obviously you can find all manner of nonsense if you look hard enough, but there was no amateur detective work needed on Saturday to find a loud minority of Aston Villa fans calling for the head of Unai Emery; he’s ‘taken them as far as he can’, apparently. Give your head a wobble: It’s closer to the truth to say that the club has taken Emery as far as they can.
There’s talk of Emery mistakes in defeat to Brentford: Starting Emiliano Martinez, leaving Donyell Malen too long on the bench as Villa struggled for width, bringing on and then substituting Emi Buendia. But the very fact that Buendia even gets a mention excuses Villa’s start to the season; the Argentine was the first man off the bench and that is truly damning.
Villa have spent the summer shedding names from their payroll after UEFA oddly objected to their wages-to-revenue ratio hitting 91% last year, allowing Philippe Coutinho and Leander Dendoncker to leave for free, while Leon Bailey has gone out on loan. The Great Loan Gamble of January now seems like a distant and particularly painful memory; soon it will feel like a fever dream that Marco Asensio and Marcus Rashford wore the claret and blue of Villa.
Jacob Ramsey has left and that was a £40m ‘pure profit’ sale that made some sense…as long as he was replaced. He was not replaced. Of the front four that started the famous 1-0 win over Bayern Munich last October, only Ollie Watkins and Morgan Rogers remain. And Villa are only just clinging onto the latter.
There’s no doubt that Emery mistakes can be identified, and they will certainly be amplified by a 1-0 defeat to Brentford and the realisation that they are below even Manchester United in the Premier League table.
But the more important Premier League table is this one, taken from the day that Emery took over from Steven Gerrard:
Aston Villa are fourth. Actual fourth. Above Newcastle United under Eddie Howe. Way above Chelsea under seven or eight different managers. Whether your chosen vernacular involves ‘punching’, ‘reaching’ or ‘batting’, there’s no doubt that it’s Villa who should be desperately trying to keep that relationship intact, not an exasperated Emery.
“We have to improve things,” he said after that defeat to Brentford, but he knows that any incomings are likely to be loans or low-cost options; Chelsea bomb squad members Christoper Nkunku and Nicolas Jackson have both been heavily linked and that market probably remains their best option.
Emery’s hands are tied behind his back and he is swimming through mud, the club paying a very hefty price for trying to smash through a glass ceiling. That’s a lot of metaphors but it feels apt as Villa are looking at a massive pile of invoices from an attempt to do the almost impossible: Qualify for the Champions League in consecutive years from beyond the Big Six.
The idea that Emery is somehow to blame for Villa’s poor start to the season is almost as ridiculous as Nuno Espirito Santo being under pressure at Nottingham Forest. Who do these fans/ludicrous owners believe can come in and do a better job? Who do they think can spin golden thread after a summer when the mid-tablers have all a) lost key players and b) struggled to recruit?
It’s not ‘news’ that there are idiots amongst football fans (and owners), but of all the Premier League managers who have earned some patience, Emery should be in the top strata. How short are people’s memories that they so easily forget where they were before and where they could easily return again? Stick a picture of Gerrard on your fridges, Villa fans.