From mid-table to the Champions League – how Unai Emery transformed Aston Villa

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Finished 4th 

Although Aston Villa’s final match of the Premier League season didn’t exactly go to plan, with a much-improved Crystal Palace inflicting a startling 5-0 defeat on the club at Selhurst Park on Sunday afternoon, Unai Emery and his players were still able to celebrate a remarkable season. Having secured a top four finish prior to the final fixture of the league campaign, Aston Villa had confirmed their spot in next season’s Champions League – a first for the Birmingham club since 1982 and undoubtedly a huge achievement by the players and their manager. 

Indeed, Villa have looked like an entirely new club since Emery was hired back in October 2022. Following a disastrous spell under Steven Gerrard, the Spaniard inherited a club that was slumped in thirteenth place in the league table, before dragging them up to a respectable seventh place by the end of the 22/23 campaign. As we now know, Emery has done even better at Villa Park this time around and with some clever tactics and a tendency to beat some of England’s biggest clubs, Villa have undoubtedly been the fourth best team in the Premier League this time around according to a number of metrics. 

Unai Emery’s Villa transformation

There’s little doubt that Villa fans have been in dreamland since Emery took over the reins at the Birmingham club, as the Spanish tactician has quickly turned around a team that were languishing towards the bottom of the table under Gerrard and dragged them into top four heaven. This clear improvement on the pitch can be seen in the fact that Gerrard’s record in the Premier League as Villa manager stood at just 1.16 points per game, while Emery’s towers over his predecessor’s with an impressive 1.86 points per game. However, it isn’t just Gerrard that Emery is overshadowing. As the graphic above shows, only three managers in the English top-flight have picked up more points since Emery arrived at Villa Park or indeed have a better points per game average than the 52-year-old head coach. 

Standing up to the “Big Six” 

More often than not, clubs can start climbing the Premier League table pretty quickly by maximising their points against teams in the bottom half of the league, but in Emery’s case he’s truly built a team that can go toe-to-toe with the clubs they’re now rubbing shoulders with in the top four. For example, as we can see in the graphic above, if we were to shrink the league table from this season down to just Villa and the traditional “Big Six” we can see that Emery’s side have come out of it all remarkably well, picking up more points than all but Manchester City and Arsenal. In stark contrast, fellow top-four contenders Tottenham Hotspur ended up picking up five fewer points. Which goes some way to explaining why Emery’s team had their fourth-placed finish secured with games to spare this season. In no uncertain terms, Villa deserved their top-four finish this season and have clearly proved their worth against the best teams in England. 

How Villa run rings around their rivals in the transfer window 

What’s perhaps most remarkable about Villa rising up the league table under Emery is the fact that the club haven’t had to spend huge amounts of money to get them fighting for a top four finish. Indeed, in the three transfer windows that Emery has had as Villa manager, the club have spent €149m on new signings – which may seem like a lot but is far less than the clubs that they’re currently rubbing shoulders with in the Premier League. In fact, when it comes to bang for their buck, few clubs in the English top-flight can rival Villa this season. As the graph above shows, which shows the difference in a club’s expenditure on new players in comparison to their league counterparts and their position in the league table, Villa are sitting comfortably at the very top of the pile, level with the aforementioned Palace but far higher than their transfer activity would suggest. Well above the often considered smarter clubs in the league, such as Brentford, and most notably punching well above their weight in comparison to the traditional “top six”.