Aston Villa head to North London this weekend to take on Tottenham in a mouth-watering Premier League.
It’s been an excellent beginning to the season for Unai Emery, as while Aston Villa have been knocked out of the Carabao Cup, they’re sitting fourth in the Premier League and top of the Champions League table.
The Villans will be confident of extending their seven-match unbeaten run this weekend when they visit Tottenham, having claimed victory over Spurs in three of their last four meetings.
Emery will have to achieve three points without midfielder Ross Barkley, who is facing a couple of weeks on the sidelines, while Ange Postecoglu confirmed that Tottenham’s star defender Micky van de Ven would miss the match.
Postecoglu also spoke about Emery in his pre-match press conference on Friday, dropping praise for the Spanish tactician.
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Ange Postecoglu hails Aston Villa’s Unai Emery
Two years on from being appointed Aston Villa manager, the 52-year-old has dragged his side from the worries of relegation to becoming a force in the Champions League.
It’s been an unbelievable turnaround under the Spaniard, who will go down as one of the club’s greatest-ever managers, regardless of whether he wins a trophy.
Some will be surprised by how well Emery has done after his struggles at Arsenal but Tottenham boss Postecoglu isn’t one of them, as the Australian always believed he would do an ‘outstanding’ job.
“Yeah, great appointment. But it shouldn’t surprise anyone, he was an outstanding manager before he got there,” Postecoglu said via Football London.
“He’s done an outstanding job and another cautionary tale about writing people off because when he was at Arsenal, people were quick to be dismissive of him. Lots of other people’s memories have faded.
“When you’re a manager and you see a manager going through what he did, it’s firmly imprinted in your mind; just goes to show, as I said, he was an outstanding manager and for Villa, they identified somebody that could come in and really bring their football club to the levels they wanted to, and he’s done that. Since he’s been there they continue to get stronger and challenge and it’ll be a good test for us.”
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How Emery compares to Postecoglu
Emery and Postecoglu are both regarded as two of Europe’s great tacticians, so it’s interesting to see how they compare at their respective clubs.
| Manager | Matches | Wins | Draws | Defeats | Points per game |
| Ange Postecoglu (Tottenham) | 55 | 30 | 7 | 18 | 1.76 |
| Unai Emery (Aston Villa) | 96 | 53 | 19 | 24 | 1.85 |
Emery only surpassed 50 wins for Aston Villa in September – doing so in the quickest time of any manager in the club’s history.
The Spaniard narrowly beats Postecoglu for points per game and has also achieved more than the Australian while in the top flight.
It’s safe say to that he’s a better manager than the Australian, and he’ll be looking to tactically outsmart him on Sunday.
