Unai Emery takes charge of Aston Villa for the first time, tasked with dragging his new side away from the Premier League (PL) relegation zone. The Spaniard is looking to arrest a slump of nine defeats from the Villains’ last 17 top flight matches (W3, D5), although one of those victories has come since the sacking of Steven Gerrard last month.
That win was a 4-0 thrashing of Brentford, a result that came completely out of the blue given Villa had netted just seven times in their previous 11 PL outings. Indeed, goals will be the order of the day for Emery, as his side have lost three of their last four matches without scoring (W1), while only two PL teams had netted fewer than their total of 11 strikes at the conclusion of matchday 13.
As if that doesn’t make the new manager’s task hard enough, his first match comes against a rejuvenated Manchester United side looking to break into the top four, to whom Villa have lost more games against than any other team (W22, D32, L75). The Reds Devils are in fact unbeaten in 23 PL visits to Villa Park since the opening day of the 1995/96 season (W15, D8), scoring a whopping 39 goals in the process!
United will therefore be confident of extending their current superb run of seven wins from nine competitive games (D2), especially as they have conceded just one goal in their last seven outings! They could do with finding a bit more firepower at the other end of the field though, as a narrow 1-0 win over Real Sociedad on Thursday consigned them to a UEFA Europa League play-off due to the tiebreaker rules, with options upfront so short that Harry Maguire ended up playing in attack!
Players to watch: Villa’s Philippe Coutinho has lost just two of his 12 H2H meetings with Manchester United (W5, D5), scoring three goals in the process. Meanwhile Red Devils midfielder Bruno Fernandes has netted on each of his three previous visits to Villa Park, scoring five times in total across six appearances against the Claret and Blues (W4, D1, L1).
Hot stat: At his eight previous clubs, Emery has lost his first game as a manager on just two occasions (W4, D2).
