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Relentless focus

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Last night I watched Unai Emery's pre-match presser before the game with Nottingham Forest tomorrow. It was a 17 minute display of relentless focus and absolute determination. The man is a different breed entirely. He was asked questions along the lines of "It's your birthday today, Happy Birthday, how do you plan to celebrate?" and responded with confirmation that he'd be watching videos, planning tactics, and might consider celebrating after the game, so long as we win. He was asked whether it made him proud that Villa fans are now super enjoying our football, then launched into his response about how the past is irrelevant, because the focus is always upon what comes next. With some managers you get a sense that they have 'a line' that they trot out in these pressers, but with Emery the repetition of his responses  [focus, improvement, practice, always striving for more] comes from within his soul. This man lives and breathes the process.

This obsession has seen our season start very well indeed. After the big injuries to Mings and Buendia at the dawn of the season, ongoing injuries also to two of our best performers from the back end of last season [Ramsey and Moreno], poundings by Newcastle and Liverpool early in the season, I, and many thought we were likely to see things unravel a bit. Not so. Emery has worked his magic, drilling the team into such a strong rhythm. We sit 5th in the league, our European campaign has gathered momentum, the injured players creep, week by week, closer to fitness - and things are good.  

Us Villa fans are conditioned to failure, and each week we seem to expect the worst [this is the week the wheels fall off etc] and yet not be surprised when actually things are fine. Brighton, tough game, 6-1 no problem. West Ham, yikes we've not beaten them for absolutely ages, 4-1, no problem. AZ Alkmaar, fine home record in Europe, like 1 defeat in 28 or something, 4-1, no problem. All of this leaves us closer to top spot than we are to 6th place, which is heady days indeed. 

Away from Villa, the title race is looking quite fruity, with Spurs, Arsenal, Man City and Liverpool all very much in contention. With the emergence of Newcastle, Villa, Brighton and West Ham, together with the fact that Man Utd and Chelsea still count as big games, even if they are shite, there are basically 10 teams in the league that provide genuine threat to those contenders in any given game. What that means, I think, is that we'll get less of the crunch 'title-decider' matches, and it'll actually get won by the team that finds the consistency against the range of teams, rather than the big result in the match that counts. 

At the other end of the table, its a bit of a sorry story for the newly promoted teams. Sheff Utd look done already, Burnley and Luton are struggling hard. Its really hard to see those teams putting together any kind of a run to keep them in touch. This is good news for fellow Dads on this blog, who occasionally take a nervous glance over their shoulders in the league table. 

I'm off now to watch the second half of Ten Hag's new brand of torture-ball, hoping for a Fulham win, but with a few suspensions so they are weakened  for the game with Villa next week. This Emery obsession is catching - with Villa doing so well, I haven't ever enjoyed my footy more.

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