The Spanish sports media is, of course, full of slants on Unai Emery’s move from Villarreal to Aston Villa.
Reports around the manager moving got serious on Monday afternoon, and by the evening it had all been confirmed. Emery is set to give a press conference at lunchtime today to say goodbye to the Spanish club, and it’s expected to be a well natured affair.
When Newcastle United were trying to take the manager last season, there was some anger around the situation and how Emery initially dealt with it. Villarreal were just about to play a Champions League match and the thought of their manager leaving for a relegation battle caused annoyance.
This time there’s more acceptance.
AS say Aston Villa offered an ‘irrefutable proposal from an economic and, above all, sporting point of view’. The latter part is said to be very important to Emery and it’s stated the Premier League club have offered him the ‘option of signing players in January’.
Marca have a nice column which insists there can be no criticism sent to the manager for his decision to leave. It’s made clear that if Villarreal had decided they’d had enough of Emery themselves then they wouldn’t have kept him simply to fulfil the contract.
The Spanish newspaper add: ‘We live in a football in which the sentimental aspect is important but it is no longer the most important thing. Unai has found a team in the Premier League, the best league in the world, which bets heavily on him.’
Aston Villa are ‘going to invest’ further in their squad, and that gives the manager an opportunity to shine in the world’s most high profile league.
