It was a little after 10pm on one of the greatest nights Villa Park has witnessed and Unai Emery was thinking about beating the former European champions.
Not Bayern Munich. Villa’s 1-0 win over the German giants will live long in the memory but a matter of minutes after the final whistle, Emery’s thoughts had already moved to taking down another huge name of the global game – Manchester United.
As Villa players celebrated wildly in the dressing room, Emery was already talking about facing Erik ten Hag’s beleaguered side at Villa Park on Sunday. The Basque’s reign began with a 3-1 home win over United and nearly two years later, a repeat could end the Dutchman’s tenure at Old Trafford.
The contrast between the two clubs could not be sharper. In many areas of modern football, the manager’s brief is narrowing by the year. Sporting directors drive recruitment, analysts determine tactics and specialist coaches work individually with players, with the whole operation driven by armies of data experts crunching dizzying quantities of numbers. Yet they have a different approach at Villa, and they are making it work by following a plan that conventional wisdom says clubs should avoid.
Villa have an analyst, all right. His name is Unai Emery. The same bloke who spends hours fine-tuning the tactical approach for every match, leading every training session, working with individual players and driving transfer policy. Though he has trusted staff to support him in all these areas, Emery – hunched over his laptop – is across the lot. ‘Workaholic’ does not even begin to cover it.
Aston Villa recorded a famous win in their return to Europe’s top flight versus Bayern Munich
Unai Emery is the master tactician and workaholic determined to bring silverware to Villa Park
Villa’s director of football Damian Vidagany (left) and sporting director Monchi (right) are also key to a sharp recruitment policy
Against Bayern, Emery recognised the threat from the flanks and picked youngster Jaden Philogene over Leon Bailey due to his greater defensive prowess and better tactical discipline.
Via individual and collective video briefings in the hours before kick-off, Emery demonstrated how Philogene and Jacob Ramsey would drop in alongside full-backs Ezri Konsa and Lucas Digne.
Time after time, Kingsley Coman and Alphonso Davies struggled to make headway on the left, and Konrad Laimer and Serge Gnabry found it scarcely easier on the right.
Bayern’s young midfielder Aleksandar Pavlovic has made more accurate passes into the final third than nearly every other similar player in Europe this season. On Wednesday, Youri Tielemans, Amadou Onana and Morgan Rogers ensured he rarely had the time or space to do so. Pavlovic attempted only 66 passes, compared with 104 in the Champions League hammering of Dinamo Zagreb and 92 in the 1-1 draw with Bayer Leverkusen last weekend.
Emery also leads every training session, sometimes stopping proceedings so he can physically move a player to the precise spot he has envisaged for defending a set piece. ‘Not here! Here!’ he was once heard barking at Ezri Konsa during one morning at Bodymoor Heath.
Kingsley Coman (left) was one of a number of visitors subdued by Villa’s well-drilled approach
Emery has a hands-on role every aspect of his position as manager – sometimes stopping players to move them physically into the right place
Recruitment is no different. Prior to Emery, sporting director Johan Lange – who is now at Tottenham – led a department that focused heavily on data analysis to identify targets. Monchi, Emery’s old ally from his Sevilla days, is now in a similar role but he interprets it very differently.
Though Villa still use data, the process is now driven by Emery’s eye for talent and Monchi’s experience, contacts and deal-making skills.
‘He is a natural,’ says Kenneth Asquez, a highly experienced intermediary who has known Monchi since 2003. ‘It’s no coincidence that he was also a player.
‘You have to have been a foot solider, to have been in the mud, to have smelled the grass. That gives you the understanding of how a dressing room works and what it needs. His intuition is first class.
‘We have seen data-driven recruitment rise over the last five years because there are more people in those roles who have never played professional football, so they use data to fill the vacuum.’
Yet there has been a subtle change in the dynamic between Emery and Monchi. At Sevilla, Emery might say to Monchi ‘I need a strong, athletic central midfielder’. Monchi would present three or four options and Emery would list them in order of preference.
At Villa, Mail Sport understands the pattern is often more straightforward. Emery identifies a player he likes and Monchi, along with director of football Damian Vidagany, try to do the rest. The classic example was Morgan Rogers.
Monchi’s experience with deal-making allows him to grant Emery’s wishes in the market
Morgan Rogers was one of Emery’s most-valued targets and after multiple attempts to bring him to Villa Park, the coach succeeded
Rogers impressed Emery in Villa’s 1-0 win at Middlesbrough in the FA Cup on January 7 and was signed for £8.5million 25 days later.
Villa insisted Rogers had been firmly on their radar for some time but if he had been a top priority, why not involve him in the deal that took youngster Finn Azaz to Middlesbrough two days before the FA Cup tie? Similarly, Onana and Ross Barkley had won Emery’s admiration last season for their displays at Everton and Luton respectively.
This plan would not work with many managers. It would not work at many clubs. At United, for example, Ten Hag has recommended several players with a background in Dutch football and look how that has turned out.
In the Premier League, perhaps only Pep Guardiola has Emery’s level of control. As the Bayern game showed, for now Villa have hit the sweet spot – as United may be about to find out to their cost.