Man Utd fans furious at ‘grim’ realisation how far Aston Villa have come while they’ve gone backwards under Erik ten Hag
ASTON VILLA suspected they were on to a winner when they enticed four-times Europa League king Unai Emery away from Villarreal in October 2022.
They will certainly never bag a bigger bargain than the £5.2million compensation fee they paid the La Liga side for their Spanish tactical genius.
Emery started the way he meant to continue at Villa, ironically beating Sunday's opponents Manchester United 3-1 on his debut - to record Villa's first home Premier League victory over United since August 1995!
And he has continued smashing records and setting new standards ever since, culminating in Wednesday's incredible win over six-times European champions Bayern Munich.
Emery credits his Basque upbringing for his workaholic nature and he is first into Villa's Bodymoor Heath training base before 8am every morning - and he is usually the last there, switching the lights off when he leaves around 9pm most nights.
A Villa insider once summed it up by saying: "It's not unusual for managers to spend long hours at the training ground, chatting to staff, having cups of coffee. Unai is different, he doesn't do down-time, it's full on work-mode from the minute he arrives to the minute he leaves."
On away trips Emery opens his laptop as soon as he boards the team coach and starts analysing his own team's performance as well as the opposition.
"He will watch all of our games seven or eight times and does the same for our opponents," says Villa's Director of Football Operations, Damian Vidagany - one of 23 Spaniards Emery has taken with him to Villa, including the world-famous transfer guru Monchi.
Emery trusts Monchi to supply the talent he needs from £50million record signing Amadou Onana to £8million bargain-buy Morgan Rogers and then he improves them beyond recognition.
Lesser managers would have written hotheaded hitman Jhon Duran off as a troublemaker - cut their losses and flogged him this summer after a series of high-profile PR gaffes.
But Emery was cold and clinical and asked himself one question - does the kid have any worth to me? Once he decided he did, he put an arm round the youngster and talked him through how he would transform him into one of the world's great strikers.
Now the smile is back on Duran's face, never more so than after his stunning winner against Bayern, which underlined Emery's extraordinary man-management skills.
Training is meticulous and repetitive until players get the drill with the aid of constant video reminders, both collectively and individually, while his army of coaches work tirelessly on improving individual players' skill-sets and game intelligence with tailor-made sessions.
Against Bayern Emery not only set Villa up brilliantly defensively to frustrate the Bavarian giants, who failed to score for the first time this season.
He also hammered home over and over again verbally and visually with video clips, Manuel Neuer's tendency to stray miles off his goal line in his sweeper-keeper role.
Jhon Duran's first-time finish to send the ball soaring over a stranded Neuer was pure genius - but the seed to try such an outrageous attempt was planted in his head by another genius.
Take a bow, Unai Emery!