Aston Villa suffered a hideous 4-0 defeat to Tottenham at Villa Park on Sunday afternoon, with some of Unai Emery’s decisions sparking a debate between punditry duo Jamie Carragher and Ian Wright on Sky Sports.
Aston Villa will be keen to put last week behind them as the Villans failed to score across both of their critical fixtures both in and out of Europe.
Unai Emery led his side to a 0-0 draw in Amsterdam on Thursday evening in the first leg of the Europa Conference League tie against Ajax, returning to Villa Park on Sunday to see the squad stunned 4-0 by Tottenham.
The fixture against Spurs was a chance for Villa to widen the gap between fourth and fifth place in what was poised to be a monumental occasion, one that ended in nothing short of a disaster.
Ange Postecoglou’s side rained on Emery’s parade, with matters not made easier as the Spaniard opted to switch up his formation to steer away from his favoured 4-4-2 system.
The manager’s decision to make the change sparked a debate on Sky Sports, with pundits Jamie Carragher and Ian Wright sharing opposing thoughts on a worrying trend surrounding Emery.
Jamie Carragher shared his concern over Unai Emery trend
Speaking on Sky Sports Monday Night Football, the two former Premier League greats drew a comparison between Emery’s decision to change things as he did against Spurs and how he failed at Arsenal.
Opening the debate Carragher explained how the switch in formation on Sunday took him back to his first full season with the Gunners.
“It takes me a little bit back to when he was at Arsenal in his first full season, he gets a lot of criticism for that season but actually for a lot of it, he was doing really well.”
“Towards the end of the season, because they were in the Europa League, they were in a great position because of top four, seven games to go and they just miss out, because Unai Emery started changing his team, changing personnel, changing formation, he did a lot of back three and a lot of back four at Arsenal and in the end, he ended up with nothing.”
That season, Emery saw his Arsenal side miss out on Champions League football both due to their Premier League placement and their disastrous 4-1 loss to Chelsea in the Europa League final, making all of the Spaniard’s hard work forgotten.
Ian Wright disagreed with Jamie Carragher’s opinion on Unai Emery
Not everyone shared the opinion of Carragher, with former Gunner, Wright, explaining the differences between Emery’s Arsenal squad and the quality currently on show at Villa.
“I think that this Villa side has a lot more quality than that Arsenal side.”
“The way this Villa side are playing, you think this is something they’ll probably learn from because I don’t think he needs to do that [change formation] with this Villa side they’ve had injuries and the way they’ve played, he should stick to the way they play.”
“I think it’s a bit unfair because he’s changed it for one game and he should go back to what he was doing.”
There are some similarities between Arsenal and Aston Villa, but not enough for concern
As Wright mentioned, Arsenal’s squad under Emery was far below the calibre of the talent on show at Villa Park, with a lot of the club’s progression down to the manager’s ability to get the best out of his players.
Prior to the Spurs result, Villa were playing strongly in a 4-4-2 lineup, something that Emery shouldn’t have altered in hindsight after Sunday’s defeat, but should simply be regarded as an experiment that failed on the day.
The work that Emery has done since his arrival in October 2022 bears little comparison to the job that he embarked on at Arsenal, with the Spaniard showing constant progression regardless of the disappointing result against the Lilywhites.
