Unai Emery ‘will be blamed’ if Aston Villa fortunes don’t improve in the Premier League

There are various reasons for Aston Villa’s poor start to the 2025-26 season but it is ultimately manager Unai Emery who ‘will be blamed’ according to a former scout.

Villa are winless in their first five matches of the season in the Premier League and the League Cup. They were knocked out by Brentford on penalties on Tuesday after taking the lead through Harvey Elliott’s first Villa goal – the team’s first goal of any description this season.

Their goalless league run stretches back into last season and Villa are in the midst of their biggest fight against adversity since Emery joined the club. He isn’t and shouldn’t be under immediate pressure but it’s valid to question the details and indeed the results, and former scout Mick Brown believes the buck will inevitably stop with the manager if improvements don’t happen soon.

Brown, who worked for Manchester United and Sunderland as well as Villa, told Football Insider: “If you start the season and after four games you still haven’t won a game, there is always going to be pressure building on your job, whoever you are.

“Emery still has the support of the board at Villa because he’s been very successful there; they’ve built a good thing, and he’s taken them to competing in Europe. But the problem is in football, that goodwill can only last so long until questions are being asked about why the team isn’t performing any more.

Emery still has the backing of the ‘board’

“Whether it’s his fault or if it’s to do with issues behind the scenes after what seemed like a bit of a disaster in the transfer window, he’s ultimately the one who will be blamed if they don’t start winning games.”

Villa have been one of the most successful teams in the Premier League in terms of picking up points since Emery’s appointment. The manager is the first in a generation to regularly lead Villa into Europe and was the first to secure qualification for Europe’s premier club competition in the Champions League era.

They’re struggling for a foothold in the new season but Villa have inarguably been improved for Emery’s involvement, from the bottom half when Steven Gerrard as finally sacked to regularly European football just three years later.

Emery has proven his abilities throughout his career, delivering silverware for Villarreal and Sevilla and becoming a regular winner in European football.

He has been sacked twice as a result of bad form in his career, by Spartak Moscow way back in 2012 and by Arsenal in 2019, but has earned enough leeway at Villa Park to remain secure in a first genuinely poor run of results.

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