“We are not contenders to be in the top five,” Emery said last month. <\/p>\n
“There are other teams with more potential than us.”<\/p>\n
That was followed by silence when he was asked why other teams had more Champions League potential than Villa. <\/p>\n
Yet Villa have continued to outstrip expectation after making their worst start to a Premier League season in 28 years with just two points and no goals after four games.<\/p>\n
Emery is their biggest asset, having raised the levels and standards at the club since replacing Steven Gerrard in November 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n Having taken them to the Champions League for the first time since 1982-83, when it was the European Cup – and then to last season’s quarter-finals – workaholic Emery has transformed Villa. <\/p>\n Of the managers who have taken charge of more than 100 Premier League games, he sits 10th, having earned 1.8 points per game during his 179 games with Arsenal<\/a> and Villa. <\/p>\n And of the nine above him, only Mikel Arteta, who succeeded Emery at the Gunners, is not a title winner, with Pep Guardiola top on 2.28 points per game. <\/p>\n Emery has improved players, signing Morgan Rogers for \u00a316m from Middlesbrough<\/a> – when he was not even a guaranteed starter for Boro – and turning him into an England regular within two years. <\/p>\n He drives the players, meticulously planning, and while Villa’s performances have not been exceptional this season, they have found ways to win consistently.<\/p>\n According to Opta, Villa should be 12th – they have an expected points score of 33.8 – demonstrating how Emery has got them overperforming. <\/p>\n He is now doing it without Boubacar Kamara<\/a>, Youri Tielemans<\/a> and captain John McGinn<\/a> after losing all three to injury last month while battling financial restrictions as Villa look to comply with Premier League and Uefa rules. <\/p>\n Emery is also trying to end Villa’s 30-year trophy drought, with winning the Europa League a real possibility. <\/p>\n “We are setting our standards high and sometimes we can become frustrated because we are not achieving during the process some results,” Emery said. <\/p>\n “But overall, our consistency is still there and our demand is still there.<\/p>\n “If we are third, it is because we are being consistent and we are being demanding.<\/p>\n “Of course, maybe we can change something but tactically and in our idea of how we are building the team, everything we built before makes sense.<\/p>\n “It is not easy now to change everything. No, it is completely wrong if we are feeling that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“We are not contenders to be in the top five,” Emery said last month. “There are other teams…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-501298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}