Dan Bardell believes Aston Villa supporters will understandably want to see more of the club’s summer signings, but Unai Emery’s careful approach to integrating new players has served him well before and deserves patience after a summer of significant change.
One of the understandable frustrations around Aston Villa’s start to the season has been how slowly some of the new signings are being introduced, particularly when results haven’t been what anybody wanted, but I also don’t think we should be particularly surprised by the approach Unai Emery is taking.
Villa have made a lot of changes this summer and there is obviously an excitement around the players who have arrived, which naturally means people want to see them immediately, especially when a game like Saturday’s against Hull City is drifting and you’re looking towards the bench for somebody who might be able to change it. I can understand people wondering why Ibrahim Mbaye didn’t get an opportunity, why Alejandro Garnacho wasn’t introduced earlier or why some of the other new faces aren’t yet being trusted from the start, but this is pretty consistent with how Emery has operated throughout his time at Villa.
His football is sophisticated and there is an awful lot expected of players both with and without the ball, so it isn’t simply a case of signing somebody who we all believe is better than the player currently occupying that position and immediately putting him into the team. They have to understand the movements, the structure, where Emery wants them when Villa have possession and, probably even more importantly to him, exactly where they need to be when Villa don’t have it.
We have seen enough examples during his time at the club to know that he will generally trust players who understand those demands before somebody who might ultimately have more quality but is still learning them, and while that can occasionally be frustrating, I also think you have to acknowledge how successful that process has been for Villa.
There is another factor this season because the team these new signings are coming into is itself trying to find some rhythm after such a significant amount of change over the summer. Against Hull, Villa had a new goalkeeper in Zion Suzuki, Nicolas Jackson leading the line, George Hemmings learning his trade on the left and Emi Buendia playing in a slightly different role centrally compared to where he spent much of last season. Ross Barkley and Boubacar Kamara can hardly have played together as a midfield partnership under Emery, while Kamara himself is still working his way back towards his best after barely playing since January.
That isn’t an excuse for Villa not winning football matches (although I believe it's a process for the greater good) and it certainly doesn’t mean everything Emery does should be beyond criticism, because I thought he could have been more proactive with his substitutions at Hull and there were opportunities to introduce some of those attacking players earlier. You can believe Emery knows considerably more about what his players are ready for than any of us while still disagreeing with individual decisions he makes.
What I don’t think would necessarily help, though, is throwing every new signing into a team that is already trying to establish new relationships and expecting everything to click immediately. If Mbaye or Garnacho is learning what Emery wants at the same time as the players around them are learning each other, there is always going to be the potential for Villa to become disjointed, particularly when the manager places so much importance on control and structure.
Jackson is probably the exception because Villa need him to play. Had Ollie Watkins still been at the club, my suspicion is that Watkins would currently be starting these games while Jackson was gradually introduced, but his competition at centre-forward is Tammy Abraham (not fancied) and that means Emery has had little choice but to accelerate Jackson’s integration. Even then, there were some encouraging signs at Hull in terms of his movement and the space he was creating for other players, even if the relationships around him clearly aren’t fully developed yet.
That is probably the important thing to remember when assessing Villa at the moment because the team we are watching now isn’t necessarily the team Emery intends to be playing once everybody is available and fully integrated. Leon Goretzka wasn’t even fit enough to make the squad at Hull, João Gomes was suspended and several of the summer arrivals are still being brought up to speed, while Kamara is understandably some distance away from the player we know he can be.
There is a balance to strike because Villa still need results while all of that is happening and nobody wants to spend the opening weeks of the season constantly talking about what the team might eventually become, but equally I think writing players off or becoming too concerned about why certain signings aren’t starting after three Premier League games ignores what we already know about Emery.
He takes his time with players because he wants them to understand exactly what he requires before he completely trusts them, and history suggests that probably isn’t going to change because supporters understandably want to see the shiny new toys immediately.
The frustration at Hull was fair and I would have liked the changes earlier myself, but there is a difference between questioning when Emery makes his substitutions and questioning the entire process behind how he integrates players. We have seen enough over the last few years to know that his methods work, and after the amount of upheaval Villa have had this summer, I’m prepared to give him the time to put this new team together properly.
