16 May 2026; Republic of Ireland head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson before the international friendly match between Republic of Ireland and Grenada at Estadio Nueva Condomina in Murcia, Spain. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
A name change to Arsenal Villa would have made all the difference for the Gunners
Cathal Dervan, Editor
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.
1 August 2018; Arsenal manager Unai Emery, left, and Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri during the International Champions Cup match between Arsenal and Chelsea at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
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.
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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!
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Arsenal legend Liam Brady believes the end of a 22 year drought for the Gunners will inspire the end of their Champions League wait on Saturday week.
Brady’s old club finally won the Premier League title for the first time since 2004 on Tuesday night when Manchester City’s 1-1 draw at Bournemouth ensured Mikel Arteta’s team can’t be caught at the top of the table.
The domestic season ends for Arsenal at Crystal Palace on Sunday but already attentions are turning to their big game against Paris St Germain in the Champions League final in Budapest on May 30th.
And Brady believes that quest for a first ever European Cup win will be significantly boosted by their Premier League success after three successive season in the runners-up spot.
The RTE website reports on Brady’s appearance on the Inside Sport show on RTE Radio One on Wednesday night when he backed his old club to really raise the stakes against PSG.
“It might just make the task of winning trophies a lot easier when you get a big one like the Premier League under your belt,” Brady said.
“The Champions League final is going to be interesting. It’s a great attacking team in PSG, but Arsenal have a defence to keep them quiet and get a goal on the break, or get a goal from a set-piece and win 1-0.
“Nobody worries about how you win a European Cup or a Champions League, it’s just getting your name on that trophy and Arsenal have never done it so it’s a big opportunity for them.
“You can really look forward to that Champions League final. Can you imagine if we had blown the league and had to play that match? It would have been really difficult, but now they’re in a very favourable situation.”
Now enjoying retirement and life as an Arsenal fan after years working on the development of young players for the club, the Gunners legend admitted the hit and miss form at the end of the season did cause him some concern.
He added: “I have to say the last couple of months have been a bit nerve-wracking. They had a healthy lead and it dwindled away a bit.
“The last couple of months have been a bit shaky but we got over the line in the end and that was down to all the wins we gathered and all the good play we had in the first half of the season.
“I think when the league began to look like we were going to win it, we got a little bit nervous. It was a bit like a golfer going into the last few holes and he’s got a couple of shots ahead of the field and he tightens up a bit and he makes a few mistakes.
“Arsenal had a bit of that because it’s been so long and in the last three years they’ve been runners-up. I did think that affected their performances and it wasn’t great, some of the games, but if we got a goal ahead, the defence usually kept a clean sheet.”
Irish internationals Ryan Manning and Finn Azaz will have the weekend off after Southampton’s appeal against their Spygate punishment was rejected by the EFL.
The Saints have now been excluded from Saturday’s play-off final after they were found to have breached the rules when they admitted to spying on Middlesbrough, Oxford United and Ipswich over the course of the season.
Middlesbrough, beaten by Southampton in the play-off semi-finals, will now take their place for Saturday’s decider against Hull at Wembley.
An appeal failed on Wednesday with Southampton also facing a four-point deduction for next season as well as that Wembley withdrawal.
The Irish Sun reports that the English Football League released a statement that read: “A league arbitration panel has tonight dismissed Southampton Football Club’s appeal against the independent Disciplinary Commission’s sanction following the admittance of multiple breaches of EFL regulations.
“The determination means that the original sanction of expulsion from the Sky Bet Championship Play-offs remains in place, as does the four-point deduction to be applied to the 2026/27 Championship table and the reprimand in respect of all charges.”
Southampton also released a statement voicing their disappointment with the decision, writing: “This is an extremely disappointing outcome for everybody connected with Southampton Football Club. We know how painful this moment will be for our supporters, players, staff, commercial partners and the wider community who have given so much backing to the team throughout the season and we apologise once again to everyone impacted by this.”
Even Unai Emery must now admit he is the Europa League king after guiding Aston Villa to a 3-0 win against Freiburg in Wednesday night’s final in Istanbul.
Scottish midfielder John McGinn lifted the Europa League trophy for the first time but Emery has now won it five times in six attempts, three with Sevilla, one with Villarreal and now this time with Aston Villa.
The BBC Sport website reports on a dramatic night in Turkey when Youri Tielemans, Emi Buendia and Morgan Rogers provided the Turkish delight for the Villa fans, 44 years after they beat Bayern Munich of Germany in the European Cup final.
Goalscorer Tielaemans said afterwards: “I feel amazing. My voice is a bit gone but it’s all good. We put in a shift and a top performance, we’ve had a great season and to top it off with this, it’s amazing.
“It’s amazing. It’s been a season with a lot of ups and downs. We started so, so bad. Our standards were very poor. The way we turned things around was a credit to the players and staff. We kept working, believing. We got the win in the end, Champions League next season and a trophy.”
Fellow scorer Rogers told TNT: “It’s hard to put into words, we’ve worked so hard for this. We’ve delivered and come through. It’s a great moment for the fans, great for the club. We’ll go down in history.”
UEFA have released details for a new qualification mechanism for the European Championship and World Cup qualifiers which will keep the bigger nations together.
The new format will come into place for both competitions after the Euro 28 finals which will feature seven fixtures at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.
The Guardian, who first broke the story in April, reports that under the new system Europe’s larger nations will no longer face mismatches against minnows such as San Marino or Andorra.
After Euro 28, the qualifiers will be based on the most recent set of Nations League rankings with three groups of 12 teams in League One.
The paper reports that the lower 18 nations, potentially 19 if Russia are reinstated, will play in three groups of six or two of six and one of seven within League Two.
Each team will play six matches, three home and three away, drawn from three pots formed according to ranking.
The report states that an unspecified number of teams in each group of League One will qualify for the tournament in question directly, with a playoff competition accommodating some of those who fall short along with a number from League Two.
Uefa President Aleksander Ceferin said: “The new formats will improve competitive balance, reduce the number of dead matches and offer a more appealing and dynamic competition to fans.”
The FAI has confirmed that the new Third Tier of the League of Ireland will kick-off in August with the 15 teams divided into three groups for a shortened first season.
The Irish Examiner reports that the inaugural truncated season will be followed by a full format in early 2027 and says that teams will play home and away matches, with the top team in the group, along with the best runner-up, reaching the semi-finals. The final will be played in November.
The FAI National League 2026 season groups are:
Group 1: Bonagee United (Donegal), Cockhill Celtic (Donegal), Home Farm DCU (Dublin), Lucan United (Dublin), Mervue United (Galway)
Group 2: Letterkenny Rovers (Donegal), Mayo FC (Mayo), Salthill Devon (Galway), St. Francis (Dublin), TUD (Dublin)
Group 3: CK United (Carlow/Kilkenny), Killarney Celtic (Kerry), Newbridge Town (Kildare), UCC (Cork), Villa FC (Waterford)
All photos on TheSportsHacks are provided by Sportsfile.com
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