“Villa able to focus on title race with European break upcoming” was a headline from The Telegraph last week. I had to re-read it several times just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

I’m 32 years old and this is comfortably the best I’ve ever seen my football team. Slightly too young to fully appreciate the Ron Atkinson and Brian Little eras (although photographic evidence exists of me dressed in claret & blue, clutching various Villa teddy bears during the 1994 league cup win), the late 2000s under Martin O’Neill were my Halcyon Days until now – something which will be true for almost two generations of Villa supporters. Even then, a delirious journey back from a 2-0 away win at Blackburn in 2009 was as close as I’ve ever felt to believing we could actually challenge for a league title.

I’m not sure we can sustain a genuine challenge now, but to be honest that doesn’t really matter. The manner in which Aston Villa have been winning matches in recent months has shown that this is a serious team capable of taking on anyone. From the total domination of Man City, to digging deep against Arsenal, to coming out on the right side of a 22-man brawl at Brentford, Unai Emery and his players have developed a precious habit of finding a way. And it’s no fluke.

There have been countless excellent pieces on Emery’s meticulous preparation for games and his unwavering obsession with improvement that explain his success far better than I could, but ultimately he is the reason none of this feels temporary. O’Neill’s teams were excellent – frighteningly good on the counter attack with a physical presence we’ve not had since – but he was never the most flexible of tacticians and we were often guilty of being too one-dimensional to dislodge the top 4 at the time. Emery on the other hand has a plan for everything and everyone, to the extent that I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s considered how my body position in the middle of the Trinity Road stand could help us play the offside trap better.

While everything suggests we are still early on in this already incredible journey, it’s important to recognise that now might be the time to enjoy it most. There’s no genuine expectation of a title challenge or even Champions League qualification this season so anything of that nature still feels like a bonus. Memories of Steven Gerrard, Remi Garde, Paul Lambert and Alex McLeish all feel too recent to forget just how lucky we are today.

There’s also an element of unknown surrounding the club’s future direction off the pitch, following the recent injection of funding from strategic investment company Atairos and uncertainty around the development of the stadium. I never want to see us leave Villa Park but as it stands we don’t know what the senior figures at the club are thinking. 

When we do finally establish ourselves at the top table again, the attention, pressure and expectation will follow soon enough. But right now we go into Friday night’s match against Sheffield United at our famous old ground with a chance to go top of the Premier League on the 22nd of December. Which is frankly still an absolutely mad sentence to write. 

So enjoy it, drink it all in, cherish this team and be sure to raise a glass to the Villa this Christmas. For many of us, we’ve never had it this good.

Excitement and expectations at Villa Park are at their highest for 13 years. With European football to look forward to, a world class head coach in charge, and what look to be some quality additions in the transfer window, supporters are daring to dream what could be achieved in the 2023/24 season. But what exactly would success look like for Unai Emery’s side?

The first thing we don’t want to take for granted is simply looking forward to watching Aston Villa play again. The last few months of Steven Gerrard’s reign were pretty soul destroying and should remain a constant reminder of how good we’ve got it now. It’s a highly likeable squad operating in an inclusive environment of continuous development, created by a manager with elite skill and seemingly absolutely no ego. With the recent arrival of Monchi as president of football operations to add to this, everything is in place for Villa to challenge on all fronts.

It’s difficult to predict what’s possible in the Premier League this season. On the one hand Newcastle appear to have established themselves among the top clubs ahead of schedule, we can expect to see a much improved Chelsea side compared to last season and Brighton don’t look like slowing down anytime soon. But with an extra Champions League place on offer and some unknowns around teams like Tottenham, qualification to Europe’s top table is not out of the question.

That said, Villa’s strength in depth still looks a little short compared to those clubs above us and we would need to maintain the staggering run of form seen since Emery took over, while managing a more hectic schedule of games with European football to juggle. As it stands, one injury to Emi Martinez or Ollie Watkins likely sees our quality drop too significantly to challenge the elite. Still, if we’re in contention again for a top 6 finish and secure any kind of European qualification for a second season in a row, I think we can be very pleased.

The cup competitions, as they always should have for Villa, offer a more realistic route to success. Of the domestic cups, the League Cup is the more achievable of the two these days. We know it’s a competition where most teams play weakened sides in the early rounds and while it can be a struggle to get enthusiastic about those September evenings in Burton upon Trent, you can suddenly find yourselves in the quarter finals and booking hotels around Wembley – only to find Man City waiting once you get there. It feels as though the FA Cup is having a bit of a renaissance, perhaps because the best of the rest can’t get near City in the league. But even their reserves tend to be good enough to win that too. You can also be unlucky to draw footballing powerhouses such as Stevenage in the third round…

Our best chance to win something surely comes in the only competition that Man City aren’t in. Despite early scepticism, the Europa Conference League has been a brilliant addition by UEFA. It’s given fanbases of big clubs, who are now otherwise muscled out by state-owned behemoths, access to some glorious nights in Europe. I looked on with nothing but envy and happiness as West Ham won that final in Prague in June. Their fans have memories to last a lifetime and I bet not a single one of them would have swapped their season for Arsenal’s for example, despite such contrasting league campaigns – a reminder if ever it was needed that football is all about memorable moments and winning stuff. We enter the Conference League as one of the favourites, something we won’t have been in any competition since the Championship, and if anyone can take us all the way to a European trophy it’s Emery.

So success could come in several forms next season and the possibilities are exciting. All I know is that come the end of May, I want to see John McGinn stumbling out of an Athens nightclub and Emi Martinez disgracing himself on an open top bus tour. That 27-year wait for silverware might just be coming onto its final straight.

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.