Barcelona are clearly doing things wrong if they ever considered Aston Villa’s Unai Emery a bigger risk than Xavi.
That’s according to former Spain goalkeeper Santi Cañizares, who has today heaped praise on the Aston Villa manager and even the club’s director of football operations Damià Vidagany.
Things are very much on the up for Aston Villa at this moment in time, with Champions League football secured for next season earlier this week.
The club have enjoyed a rapid rise over the last 18 months under the guidance of Unai Emery, who arrived to replace Steven Gerrard in November 2022 and hasn’t looked back since.
From that point Aston Villa have enjoyed nothing but success, first qualifying for the Europa Conference League last season before going considerably better this year and leading the club to the top four and Champions League.
He’s one part of a very Spanish operation currently in charge at Aston Villa, with Emery leading the team, Monchi in charge as the director of football and Damià Vidagany in charge of football operations.
They’ve all supercharged Aston Villa’s fortunes since their arrivals and Cañizares is full of praise for them, even using Emery’s success as a chance to take a swipe at Barcelona.
“Damià Vidagany is a football guy. Of course he has character, but all good football people need character to compete,” he said.
“He has nothing to do with the pitch, but he has a lot to do with the offices Damià has defended indefensible things to me against his will, but he is clear that when he receives a salary, he wants the club to pay him with pleasure”.
“He (Emery) is a fantastic coach. If Unai Emery generates more doubts in Barcelona than Xavi, you’re doing things wrong. He has a CV and a past that we can’t go against. The only real thing in football is history. In the face of opinion, data.”
