With Christmas approaching and all eyes elsewhere, Aston Villa quietly released an announcement that embodied the club’s excitement about what is possible under Unai Emery.
On December 19, Chris Heck, Villa’s head of commercial operations, said on the club’s website that the club had halted plans to renovate the North Stand and raise capacity from 42,000 to more than 50,000.
Building the stand would require reducing capacity to around 36,000 for two years, which Heck believed would result in Villa Park losing part of its influence over opponents. ‘I think it would be a poor idea to knock down one of our stands for two years and play like we are,’ Heck said.
Some question if this delay will have an impact on the stadium’s ability to host Euro 2028 matches. Villa are certain that will not happen, but the message is obvious. The club does not want to do anything that could jeopardize their progress under Emery, who has them one point behind the leaders ahead of tonight’s match against Manchester United.
Former CEO Christian Purslow, who departed in June, spearheaded the inaugural Villa Park project.
Under Dean Smith and Steven Gerrard, approximately £250 million was spent on transfers. However, with 33,000 fans waiting for season tickets, Purslow believed that accommodating more of them would eventually make the team more sustainable and less reliant on billionaire owners Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens.
This is Emery’s show now, and his plan is a little simpler: get the squad into the Champions League, and everything else will follow.
Funds that might have been used for other purposes are more likely to be directed towards the first team, and with Villa having one of their best seasons in history, it’s tough to criticize.
Villa knew that to hire a super-coach like Emery, they had to give him an enormous salary, a long contract, and a free rein.
In barely a year of the Emery era, Purslow has left and so has their sporting director, the quietly impressive Johan Lange, who is now doing a similar job at Tottenham.
And here is the crux of Villa’s gamble. As things stand, everything is perfect. They have one of the best teams in the country, marshalled by one of the world’s finest coaches, and the backing of billionaires.
Atarios, an American equity entity, recently invested in Villa’s parent firm V Sports, potentially increasing financial power.
Nobody should resist pursuing achievement because they are afraid of failure, and Villa made a courageous move by giving over responsibility to Emery. However, it is logical to wonder what the plan is if the Basque are lured away.
large-name managers have large egos, and Emery is no exception. Barcelona and Real Madrid may make changes this summer, while SirWes Edens.and his INEOS lieutenants will have to decide what to make of Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag.
Though Emery’s dedication to Villa is undeniable, that doesn’t stop one of Spain’s big two or an English rival from calling, and tonight’s match provides Ratcliffe with an ideal opportunity to compare Ten Hag to Emery. What happens to Emery’s crew when he finally leaves? If they accompany him to his next work, Sawiris, Edens, and the rest of the survivors will face a significant rebuilding endeavor.
Emery allies fill important positions: Damia Vidagany is the director of football operations, with Monchi, the famed transfer chief, serving as the president.
Vidagany is a shrewd operator who has a natural sense of the political climate in a club and understands which buttons to push. Despite Heck’s influence over the business side, everyone knows who owns this club now. What Unai wants, he gets.
