Man Utd: ‘Only’ reason Unai Emery would replace Carrick offers depressing, false reality
Manchester United are prolonging Michael Carrick’s misery to ensure a new manager has an international break to get the lame Old Trafford ducks in a row before their own Red Devils doom spiral begins.
The poisoned chalice looks set to be handed to either Eddie Howe or Julian Nagelsmann, though Unai Emery’s name keeps popping up, perhaps more in hope than expectation on the back of his outstanding work at Aston Villa.
‘Big club’ concerns after relatively poor spells at Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain feel trivial compared to his track record of very quickly implementing a style to fit a group of players, improving many of those players beyond recognition and building and rebuilding squads on a tight budget to exceed expectations and then some. He’s probably the best manager in the Premier League.
He lives and breathes football coaching. Any frustration at financial fair play constraints hampering his and Villa’s progress are tempered by his obsession with the nitty-gritty of tactics and man-management.
In the summer they lost their No.1 goalkeeper and former Yashin Trophy winner Emiliano Martinez, their best defender in Ezri Konsa, midfield dictator Youri Tielemans, £100m-man Morgan Rogers and their all-time leading Premier League goalscorer in Ollie Watkins. And after a slow start, they look as though they might be even better this season.
Emery’s ability to get the best out of players might be unmatched. He raises the ceilings of lost souls like Nicolas Jackson to a point even they might not have thought possible. He’s the only reason why Alejandro Garnacho’s Premier League career isn’t doomed already. If anyone’s going to get a tune out of him, it’s Emery.
That ability makes him a hugely attractive proposition for any club but specifically Manchester United, where players have gone to die in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era before either being revitalised elsewhere or – more often than not – continuing down the path of ignominy they trod as soon as they signed their Red Devils contract.
The question is, what might attract Emery to Manchester United? Former Aston Villa scout Bryan King offered his depressing take for Football Insider.
“Why would Emery want to leave Aston Villa? He’s built two teams there quite successfully. It’ll take somebody two years to rebuild Manchester United. The only thing that would make him leave would be money.”
Not Unai, surely.
The money would have to be right, and it would be, but a man so obsessed with football heading to Old Trafford purely for a retirement fund payday would be as disillusioning as it gets, and speaks to a wider issue at the club, where players, managers, club directors, whoever, turn up, think they’ve made it and relax.
We can’t imagine Emery has relaxed in his life for more than a couple of minutes and have no doubt that he would carry the very same energy he exhibits at Aston Villa with him to Man Utd, if the so-called “best in class” manage to tempt him away from a brilliantly run football club to one that is still just about a football club.
Any Emery move would be driven by ego. Man Utd remains one of the biggest clubs in the world, or at least one of the biggest football brands. Turning the sinking Old Trafford ship around and winning major honours with them would be one of the greatest achievements in football history.
Which big manager wouldn’t wonder if they had it in them? And Emery might wonder more than most, with that true big-club success the one thing missing from an otherwise exemplary CV.
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