Matt Maher: Unai Emery has the pedigree – can he deliver at Villa?

Ron Atkinson and Martin O’Neill were unquestionably big names domestically and the latter’s arrival in 2006 was seen as a huge coup for a club which had finished 16th in the Premier League the previous season.

Yet in terms of wider European profile and certainly when it comes to pedigree, there is no-one to really match Emery, a four-time Europa League winner who has also managed one of the two richest clubs on the planet. The number of overseas media expected to attend his formal unveiling this afternoon demonstrates this is an appointment which has piqued interest well beyond the West Midlands.

It is undoubtedly a big deal for Villa and neither does it feel an exaggeration to suggest Emery’s tenure may prove the most defining of the club’s current ownership.

After three years of impressive progress following their 2018 takeover, billionaire duo Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens have seen fortunes on the pitch stall, if not slightly regress, since the £100million sale of Jack Grealish 15 months ago.

Having invested more than £400m on the playing squad, they expected better than a battle against relegation and the swift hiring of Emery, not even 96 hours after sacking Steven Gerrard, reflected a growing sense of urgency and an awareness momentum must be restored to their project.

There is always a danger of reading too much into a photograph, yet the image released by the club this week of Emery and Sawiris holding a Villa shirt, contract agreed, felt significant considering the latter’s typical preference for remaining out of the limelight. With Mauricio Pochettino having also been sounded out about replacing Gerrard, the inference was the owners remain unwavering in their commitment. In Emery, they believe they have found the man capable of realising their ambition of restoring Villa to English football’s elite.

Of course, you might argue the club have been seeking that man for the last 40 years. Should Emery see out the four-and-a-half year contract agreed, he would be Villa’s longest-serving manager since Ron Saunders.

It was Brian Little, during an appearance this week on the In The Stiffs podcast co-hosted by former Wolves midfielder Dave Edwards, who described Saunders as they only boss to have ever ‘really cracked it’ at Villa.

Little himself came closer than most, guiding the club to fourth and fifth-placed finishes in his two full seasons in charge and delivering their last major trophy with the 1996 League Cup win. Yet generally Villa’s best managers since 1982 have been able to take them so far without ever being able to take the final step of firmly establishing them as a force. Atkinson, Little, Gregory and O’Neill all got close. The great unknown in the sequence is what would have happened had England not come calling for Graham Taylor in 1990, after he had guided Villa to the First Division runners-up spot behind Liverpool.

The difficulty for Emery is the ceiling to the Premier League’s elite, the so-called Big Six, is now so much higher and stronger. Neither has the competition to be Best of the Rest ever been tougher, with Newcastle now backed by the might of Saudi Arabia’s Private Investment Fund. Though Sawiris and Edens might rank among the top flight’s richest owners, they cannot match the wealth or security of a nation state. Even billionaires keep an eye on the bottom line and their investment in Villa, while always bold, has never been reckless.

There is a larger debate to be had over what constitutes success for those clubs – you could certainly include Wolves on the list despite their current woes – who aspire to break up the Big Six hegemony. In the short-term, competing for European qualification and having a decent cup run would appear a fair aim and it was certainly the ambition at Villa heading into this season.

The immediate challenge for Emery is on narrowing the gap between expectations in the boardroom and the reality of what has so far been delivered on the pitch. Though the club’s hierarchy are confident they already have a squad capable of challenging in the top half of the table, a record of 26 defeats in the last 51 matches highlights Villa have for some time been very much a bottom half outfit.

While most observers would agree they have the talent to be doing better than 16th, the question of by how much remains tricky to answer? If nothing else the remainder of this season should indicate the realistic potential of a group which in Emi Buendia, Philippe Coutinho and Leon Bailey – to name just three – contains several big money signings yet to consistently deliver.

Though Villa have typically talked a good game, the suspicion has been of them playing a slightly different one. Considerable attention and time has gone into building a recruitment department yet the signing of players has often felt rather fluid, with manager, sporting director and even chief executive offering an opinion. Emery’s appointment, on that note, contrasts sharply with that of predecessor Gerrard.

The Spaniard’s track record gives cause for optimism. While he might not have always delivered on his varied remits, there has rarely been a post where he has not had a positive impact and his knack of getting clubs competing regularly against rivals with bigger resources is of particular note. Villa, for all the wealth of their owners, certainly fall into that category.

The size of the challenge should not faze Emery, though neither can it be underestimated. For all his experience and the undoubted ambition in the boardroom, a little patience will almost certainly be required.