A name change to Arsenal Villa would have made all the difference for the Gunners
Unai Emery can now be crowned King of the Europa League
Almost a decade ago the Premier League giants Arsenal and Chelsea rolled into Dublin on the first day of August 2018 for the International Cup, a glorified friendly at the Aviva Stadium.
Some 46,000 fans turned up for a game that was memorable for all of 90 minutes plus penalties, a game won 6-5 in the shoot-out thanks to a Petr Cech stop against his old club.
Maybe some of those present can remember the quality of the football or the glamour of the occasion - maybe some need to research seeing the new Premier League title winners in Dublin as I did on Wednesday night.
And what’s when I found it, the Sportsfile photo of Unai Emery and Mauricio Sarri parading the West Stand touchline in their roles as Arsenal and Chelsea bosses respectively.
It’s a rare photograph simply because neither of them lasted too long in their respective jobs.
Sarri, who beat Emery in the League in London just 17 days later, was gone by the end of the season, back to Italy and Juventus because he wanted to spend more time with his ageing parents.
It took Emery and Arsenal a little longer to part their ways with the man from the Basque Country sacked at the end of November 2019 after a run of seven winless games.
The Europa League, of all things, was the straw that broke the camel’s back for the Gunners, Emery receiving his P45 after losing 2-1 at home to Eintracht Frankfurt in his favourite competition.
It didn’t matter that Emery had won the Europa League three times with Sevilla at that stage - he had lost the 2018-19 final to the same Chelsea side that had travelled to Dublin the previous August.
As far as the North London faithful were concerned, Emery was a bottler. At the end of that first season his team’s early season form disappeared as they took just four points from their final five games to finish fifth behind Manchester City and miss out of the Champions League.
A seven game winless run the next season, culminating in that Frankfurt defeat, was the final straw for a board and a club still looking to rediscover themselves after the long, long Arsene Wenger era.
Emery was sacked and many in English football wrote him off but sometimes managers just need the right fit to do their thing. Just like players, they need an environment and a culture that suits them.
Villareal offered Emery that journey of rediscovery. Six months after Arsenal said goodbye he was announced as their manager. By the end of his first year with the Yellow Submarine he had beaten Arsenal in the Europa League semi-final and Manchester United, on penalties, in the final in Gdansk.
Unai Emery rediscovered his mojo at Villareal and his magic in the Europa League. If horses are for courses, then Emery is the man for the second best competition in European football.
He has proven that again with the Villa, the club who paid Villareal a cool €6million for his managerial transfer in October 2022.
It’s been a good fit for both. They may not be title contenders in England, and that list of candidates is shortening by the season as money talks louder than ever, but Villa are a big English club who can more than hold their own against the next level down in Europe.
They proved that again on Wednesday night with their 3-0 win over Freiburg and two great first-half goals from Tielemans and Buendia.
The win means the world to the Villa fans but it means so much more for Unai Emery.
He will probably never win the Premier League and his last failure to do so cost him the Arsenal job in 2019 but until this week, they hadn’t won it either.
What he will do is give your team a bloody good chance in knock-out football. He’s proven that in the Europa League, three times with Sevilla and once now with both Villareal and Aston Villa.
In the build-up to Wednesday’s game, Emery rejected claims that he is the King of the Europa League. That title can stick now and fans in North London can wonder what might have been if they had given the Royal one just a little longer.
Maybe all Arsenal had to do the day they appointed him was add Villa to their name. Arsenal Villa would have won something under Unai Emery. The Europa League at least!