Matt Maher: Aston Villa are on the fast track to success under Unai Emery

Extraordinary because 18 months ago it would have felt a laughable concept. Fair because in the intervening period, Emery’s work has made anything seem possible.

Can you win the Premier League with Villa?

Emery, as is often his method when receiving a question he doesn’t particularly fancy, didn’t really give a clear answer. Later in the press conference, the first after Villa had taken up the option to extend his contract by an extra year following unwanted interest from Bayern Munich, the Spaniard expressed pride in his achievements so far, while also stressing the difficulty on improving on the heights already hit this season.

It contrasted rather sharply with some of the bold pronouncements by others at the club that same week, talk of “kicking down doors” and “historic levels of greatness”. It is not that Emery isn’t fiercely ambitious. His targets are far higher than he would ever admit publicly.

“We want the giant running and conquering, not only awakening,” he wrote in his programme notes ahead of the Europa Conference League semi-final first leg against Olympiacos. It is not the only time he has been emotive on that particular page.

At the same time, there has been an effort to inject some realism into the dream.

You could see it after the 2-2 draw with Chelsea, when Villa’s head coach largely rejected reflections on his team letting slip a two-goal lead to stress the “fantastic” achievement of securing Europa League qualification.

It was there again after last Sunday’s 1-0 defeat at Brighton, when Emery responded to a totally fair enquiry from a broadcast with a vigorous shake of the head and expressed his desire to focus on: “Only positives.”

You watched that clip and saw a head coach, just maybe, showing signs of stress with the season’s main goal, qualifying for the Champions League, now agonisingly close and his team having just squandered a golden opportunity to seal the deal.

But there is also a sense Emery feels his team have not quite got the credit they deserve. He may have a point. So rapid was Villa’s transformation upon his arrival, it can be easy even for those who have witnessed it first-hand to take it for granted.

Whichever way you square it and regardless of what may or may not have happened last night in Athens (check the Express & Star website for a full match report), it has been an extraordinary campaign, the finest by any Villa team for nearly 30 years.

By the same token, Emery will be aware of the need to deliver a decent follow-up. That is the nature of his industry. He used the same programme notes mentioned previously to reference raised expectations.

Much as the head coach will always say his focus is on the next match, Villa’s strategy for the summer transfer window will already have been discussed at length. It is there in particular the challenges lie as the club looks to strengthen while also remaining within the financial rules set up by both the Premier League and Uefa.

Ever since Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens walked through the door, Villa have been prepared to push those regulations as much as they can. One of the most important, yet all too often forgotten deals in recent history was the £56.7million sale of Villa Park to a company controlled by the owners. It allowed Villa to rebuff the advances of Tottenham for Jack Grealish in 2018 and yet still remain within the limits. Without Grealish, there would almost certainly have been no promotion nine months later.

With their sights now set much higher, Villa are among the most vocal Premier League clubs lobbying for an easing of spending restrictions.

They recently joined both Manchester clubs in voicing opposition to “anchoring” proposals which would limit spending to a proportion of the broadcast revenues received by the club finishing bottom of the tables.

The issue for City and United is obvious - such a rule would lessen the value of their lucrative sponsorship deals. Villa, eager to make up rapid ground in that area with president of business operations Chris Heck having already claimed to have doubled the income of shirt and kit deals, don’t want to be hindered in the future.

Of greater significance in the short-term is Villa’s suggestion the Premier League raise the permitted losses allowed under profit and sustainability from the current £105m limit to £125m over a three-year period.

Just how close Villa are to the edge of the rules is not clear but the £119m total losses they reported for the 2022-23 season did little to dispel claims they will need to sell a star player early in this summer’s window to stay within the limits.

Throw in the ever tightening Uefa cost controls, which will restrict clubs to spend only 80 per cent of their revenues on transfers, player wages and agents’ fees from next season and it is easy to see why Emery has gone on record in saying the club must be “intelligent” in the market.

“This project just started,” the head coach recently noted, a sentence which could be read in two ways, highlighting both big ambition and the fact it will take time for them to be realised.

The speed of Villa’s progress under Emery has taken everyone by surprise. During a video interview with former striker Gabriel Agbonlahor released yesterday, Heck admitted progress had been “earlier than expected.”

“The football side is a train going lightning fast,” he said. “The business side has to catch that train.”

It’s a good analogy. In the meantime, Villa will hope Emery can continue to move the team forward at such speed.