**Why Would Unai Emery Leave Aston Villa?**
I thought I would expand on an X post I put out after a TalkSPORT clip of Simon Jordan saying that Emery has to leave Aston Villa was doing the rounds on social media the other day. This is a long post today, so strap yourself in.
Yes, there will be plenty of Villans disappointed by Jordan’s comments, and some completely outraged, simply because he’s said nice things about us in the past, but most understand that Jordan can’t influence the possible departure of Unai Emery. Only Emery can make that decision.
But it does raise an interesting question. Why should Emery feel the need to leave Aston Villa to achieve something special? Why does success have to mean moving to a club that generates more money, spends more money and supposedly offers him a better chance of winning trophies?
Football history tells us that you don’t necessarily have to manage one of the biggest clubs in the country to leave a lasting legacy.
Look at Brian Clough and what he achieved at Nottingham Forest. He took a club that wasn’t considered one of the giants of English football and turned them into league champions and European champions. His legacy wasn’t built by moving to Manchester United or Liverpool. It was built by making Nottingham Forest successful.
Some will say that, in Clough’s time, Forest were spending big on incoming players. True. But my point isn’t to compare Forest’s spending with Villa’s. It is to look at what can be achieved when a manager builds something special at a club, and we have our own history to look back on.
Ron Saunders achieved something extraordinary at Aston Villa. He built a team that won the First Division title in the 80/81 season and went on to win the European Cup in 1982. We weren’t operating with the financial resources available to the modern-day Aston Villa. The investment going into the club today is on a completely different scale, yet Saunders still took us to the top of English and European football.
That is the comparison worth making. Villa’s achievements in the 70s and the early 80s came in an era when the club had nothing like the level of investment available today. It shows what can be achieved through good management, the right players, hard work and a clear vision.
Emery has the opportunity to build on that history. He has already shown what he can do at Villa, and there is no reason to believe that his best work is over here at Aston Villa.
Emery, like Saunders, is a workaholic. He will make sure his players are at peak fitness. He won’t stand for any nonsense; otherwise, you’ll be out the door. But I would say Emery has more say over what goes on behind the scenes, such is the respect the owners have for him.
A manager needs to feel that he has the support of the people running the club, especially when things become difficult. He needs the freedom to make decisions, build a squad and work towards his ambitions without constantly looking over his shoulder.
At Aston Villa, Emery has that opportunity. The owners have backed him, and he has helped take us into a position where we can compete with clubs that have enjoyed far greater financial resources for much longer.
Of course, there will always be clubs that can offer more money. Manchester United is one of them. But money alone doesn’t guarantee success, and a club’s history doesn’t automatically mean that a manager will be successful there.
Just look at the pressure that comes with managing Manchester United. It is a club where expectations are rightfully high, brilliant managers have come and gone, rebuilding a team can become very hazardous there if the results don’t arrive quickly enough.
Emery’s experience at PSG and Arsenal will have taught him plenty about the pressures that come with managing major clubs. A move to Manchester United might look attractive to most people, but that doesn’t mean it would necessarily be the right move for him.
Would he be given the time and authority he currently enjoys at Villa? Would he be allowed to build a side in his own image? And would the people above him stand by him if results dipped while he was trying to rebuild the team?
Those are important questions, because there is a big difference between being offered a job at a so called bigger club and being given the conditions needed to succeed there.
Villa have invested heavily to reach this position, and the ambition is there to take the club further. We aren’t talking about a manager who has taken us as far as we can go and now has nowhere else to turn. There is still plenty to achieve here.
Emery has taken Villa back into European competition and helped establish us as a side capable of competing against some of the biggest names in the game. Our recent 2-1 win at home against Manchester City was another reminder of what this team can do.
That doesn’t mean everything is perfect, or that we should expect to win every competition we enter. But the foundations have already been put there by Emery, we have something solid to build on, even if we have a spell of bad form.
We also need to remember that spending money is only one part of it. A club can spend hundreds of millions and still struggle to get the right squad. The manager needs to identify the players who fit his system, develop them and create a team that works together. That takes time and patience.
Villa have an opportunity to keep building something special. Why would Emery walk away from that simply because another club might be able to spend more money?
This is about what Emery wants from his career. Nobody can make that decision for him, and if he decides one day that he wants a new challenge, then that is his choice. But I don’t believe he has to leave Villa to prove himself or to cement his place in football history.
He can achieve that by staying where he is, continuing to build the club and bringing more success to Villa Park. He would be adding another chapter to a history that already includes the achievements of Ron Saunders.
Look, if I were Emery, I’d think very carefully about a move to Manchester United if they ever made an approach for him. He wouldn’t necessarily be given the time to build a side, even if they offered him a ten-year contract, because we know contracts are like hearts, they’re there to be broken. And Manchester United are notorious for it. UTV
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