With 10 points from a possible 15 in a run that’s seen us play 4 of the top 7 teams in the league (and a Wolves side better than their league position suggests), Unai Emery has surpassed most expectations at Aston Villa since taking over from Steven Gerrard.

It’s fair to say there was a turning point even before his appointment, when Aaron Danks simply put round pegs in round holes to oversee an emphatic 4-0 home win over Brentford at the end of October. But it’s Emery’s clear tactical nous, coaching expertise and knack of influencing a game with changes that has made Villa look like a genuinely good team for much of his first 5 league games.

In such a short space of time with these players, he’s turned Villa into a side carrying plenty of offensive threat while remaining organised and disciplined for the most part. It will be a while before we get a clear picture of what he wants this team’s identity to be, but that makes his ability to adapt and pick up big results in the meantime all the more impressive.

Take the Brighton win for example. With Ollie Watkins ruled out late due to illness, Danny Ings came in and instead of playing the same way and asking him to do Ollie’s job of running the channels and stretching defences, Emery recognised that this wouldn’t utilise his best attributes:

“We changed our shape a little bit with him because I was thinking his best position is between the two centre-backs. We needed good passes and assists to him, and I think if we could do it, we would help Danny to give his best performance.”

No stubbornness in his system, just giving players the best chance of playing well by playing to their strengths. Ings can’t do what Watkins does and vice versa, so why ask them to?

It’s been years since Villa have had a manager capable of influencing a game with substitutions too. Both Steven Gerrard and Dean Smith were often guilty of leaving it too late to make in-game changes, while Steve Bruce’s answer was usually to just throw on all the strikers (and if that didn’t work, send Chris Samba up top to join them). 

At Brighton, Emery recognised our best chance of holding onto our lead against a side far more comfortable in possession than us was to strengthen the low block as we finished the game with a sometimes comical looking back 6 – it did the job though as the 3 points were safely protected, with more than a little help from John McGinn’s arse (another strength Emery appears to have quickly identified). 

It was the same at Spurs with subs that looked baffling at the time but proved very effective in seeing out the game in the most comfortable fashion, and he effectively changed the game against Wolves to salvage a point after a dreadful first half.

In fact, Emery has already made a few calls that the majority of fans wouldn’t have agreed with, but he’s quickly been vindicated. I’m sure most of us would have played even a severely hungover Emi Martinez over Robin Olsen at Spurs, following the Swede’s anxious showings in recent months, but he put faith in our no. 2 and was rewarded with a far more assured performance. Meanwhile Tottenham’s returning World Cup finalist Hugo Lloris cost them the game. Is this what competence looks like?

There’s an argument that football managers will always know better than the fans, and while that should be the case, it didn’t feel that way under Gerrard as he seemed to overlook so much that seemed obvious to us. With Emery though, he sees things we’ll probably never see and that’s ok. Too often in Villa’s recent history have managers been met with cries of “You don’t know what you’re doing”. Let’s enjoy having someone who does.