Dan Bardell expects Aston Villa to back Unai Emery in January transfer window
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Unai Emery will want to add more pace and width to his Aston Villa squad, and the club will back him to do that in January, Dan Bardell believes.
The new manager masterminded an excellent Premier League win over Manchester United in his first game in charge, with Leon Bailey and Jacob Ramsey both important to the game plan, but otherwise doesn’t have many wide options.
Having made a firm decision to sack Steven Gerrard and get the former Arsenal boss from Villarreal midseason Bardell expects the club to follow through with the plan and give him the chance to bring in some new players in the winter window.
He said, speaking exclusively to Villa News: “Knowing Unai Emery from the past through his career, it sounds like game plans will be different from game to game.
“Emery has patterns of things that will change game by game. Villa pressed very heavily, especially in the first half of the Manchester United win, and it took up a lot of energy.
“Maybe for away games he wants to press slightly different to conserve a bit of energy, and maybe go harder in the second half.
“But the plan was quite clear in the first half at Villa Park to get at Man United, press them im the right areas and move the ball around them.
“The plan worked because obviously they won 3-1.
“We’ll get to January quite quickly now because of the World Cup and I think he’ll be allowed the freedom to get in a couple of his own players.
“I think it’s quite clear from some of the systems that have lined up that Villa are lacking wide players and maybe players in the forward areas for him to be able to do what he wants to do.
“So I imagine he’ll potentially be going back to his old team, going to La Liga, and looking at players that he’s worked with before that perhaps he wants to bring in.
“Because Steven Gerrard didn’t play with wide players Villa have got a lack of them now and I think most managers will rely a bit on pace and wide players.
“From some of the Champions League games at Villarreal that I watched the season before this they were based heavily on having pace on the flanks and up front.
“So I imagine that’s something that he’ll want to rectify but he’ll be given the freedom to do quite a lot. He’s been given a three-and-a-half year contract with a year’s option in the club’s favour.
“I think they’re going to heavily back him because you don’t get in a manager like this without giving him backing, that would be a naive.
“So I think they’ll back him and he’ll bring some of his old players in, but the encouraging thing you can see already from a short space of time he will 100% improve the players who are there already.
“Because we weren’t getting anything near to the performance we got against Manchester United from a lot of our games this season.
“I was encouraging to see the likes of Jacob Ramsey, Leon Bailey and Ollie Watkins, the way they played, so he will also work well with what he’s got.”
If the hierarchy at Villa were willing to put as much money behind the Gerrard project as they were while getting so little in return then they will likely be prepared to give Emery the opportunity to alter the squad as soon as possible.
He has already shown what he can do with the players available to him, so with a couple of his own signings there is time for him to make a success of this season, despite the difficult start.
The owners haven’t lacked ambition in the past couple of years, and that doesn’t look to be changing now, so the supporters can afford to feel optimistic again.
In other Aston Villa news, Alan Hutton thinks they will look for another midfielder in January.