Former Aston Villa boss issues clear advice to Unai Emery after five consecutive wins

Unai Emery has been backed to return Aston Villa to consistent form in 2025/26 by the last manager to take them into Europe.

Villa have won five matches in a row in all competitions after starting the season without a win in six, scoring just twice. Gradually, the players and the team as a whole have begun to look like their old selves.

Former Villa manager Martin O’Neill believes that the test for Emery is in how he handles the recovery from a problematic run of bad results and worse performances, a process that is now in full swing.

Asked what he’d be doing if he were in Emery’s shoes, O’Neill told OLBG: “Well, he’s getting going now, just at this moment. All managers, the great managers, have difficult times. It’s how you come through.”

O’Neill is a vocal admirer of the current Villa boss and didn’t think a dip in results threatened a long-term issue for a manager who’s up there with the best. Evolving and improving is just part of the game.

“[Pep] Guardiola has been sailing along serenely there for years and years,” added O’Neill. “Great manager, but suddenly loses a couple of major players. Rodri to injury, but certainly [Kevin] De Bruyne is leaving the football club, and you’re trying to rebuild again.”

One thing Villa’s football department will be considering carefully is that there are a number of key players approaching or indeed past the age of 30.

While there’s no immediate cause for alarm – Villa are seeking to protect the value of some of these players with contract extensions but will certainly allow players to leave for good fees in the next few transfer windows – the situation does require Emery and his colleagues to have a succession plan in place.

“Now, Sir Alex Ferguson was a master at being able to rebuild quickly,” said O’Neill.

‘You’ll get it going’

“This idea of getting the younger players into the side and getting them gelled. Sometimes that doesn’t happen even to great managers. They take a little bit of time again to get going.

“So I would think [Emery] really should be okay. You’ll get it going again. You’ll get it going because you’ve got confidence in yourself because of what you’ve done in the game and you’ve got confidence in your team.”

O’Neill was appointed as Villa’s manager in the summer of 2006, a year after leaving Celtic to care for his wife.

The former Wycombe Wanderers and Leicester City boss flirted with the top four throughout his time in charge, delivering consecutive sixth-placed finishes in the Premier League and a brief but long-awaited return to European competition.

He left in August 2010 and has since managed Sunderland, Nottingham Forest and the Republic of Ireland national team.

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