It’s coming up to two years since Unai Emery took the job at Aston Villa and it’s turned out to be a match made in heaven.
Aston Villa offered Unai Emery a route back into the Premier League when the club where fighting at the bottom of the table.
Emery – who had faced criticism during his time at Arsenal – had an opportunity to build a dynasty at Villa Park.
The Spaniard helped Aston Villa qualify for the Europa Conference League with a seventh-place finish in 2022/23, and then went one better by leading them to fourth, with the ultimate prize of Champions League football.
Emery recently became the fastest manager to reach 50 wins in Villa’s history, doing so in 90 games, with the 51-year-old cementing his legacy as one of the greats.
Currently, he has perhaps the most secure job in Europe, and there are only a select few clubs that could tempt him to jump ship.
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TalkSPOPRT pundit Alex Crook thinks Unai Emery would join Manchester United
The club that doesn’t spring to mind at the moment is Manchester United, with the team going through their most recent period of turmoil under Erik ten Hag.
United have continued to regress as a club since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013. Several managers have since tried, and failed, to take the Red Devils back to the very top, including Jose Mourinho, Louis van Gaal and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
But talkSPORT pundit Alex Crook insists that Villa boss Emery is that man and believes he would make the switch to Old Trafford if the opportunity arose.
He debated the idea with former Birmingham City striker Troy Deeney, who disagreed with his viewpoint.
Deeney said: “You think nobody turns Man United down.”
Crook then replied: “You’re going back to a conversation we had in the box at Ascot last week where our newsreader had suggested that Thomas Frank wouldn’t leave Brentford for Manchester United.
“And I said to you, there are three managers in the Premier League who would turn down United and they are Arteta, Guardiola and Arne Slot. Everybody else would take the job, and I include Unai Emery. It’s Manchester United.”
Unai Emery should stay at Aston Villa for years to come
The Spaniard showed where his priorities lay in the summer. Bayern Munich offered Emery the job but he turned them down and instead signed a new five-year contract with Aston Villa in May.
So, there isn’t a chance that the world-class manager would take the risk and join Man United, a club in constant turmoil on and off the pitch.
Unless a huge job opportunity comes up, perhaps returning to his home country with Real Madrid or Barcelona, there’s no chance Emery will leave anytime soon.
As far as he’s concerned, he has unfinished business at Villa. He’s worked miracles to guide them back to Europe’s elite competition but the icing on the cake would be some silverware, and that is what he’ll aim to achieve this season.
