Soccer
Unai Emery's former player praises Aston Villa manager as 'really underestimated'
Check your region for UCL & UWCL on DAZN
Aidan McGeady praised his former manager Unai Emery despite his occasional struggles.
Emery managed the former Ireland international at Spartak Moscow, and while the pair of them experienced mixed fortunes in Russia, Emery has gone on to impress at Aston Villa.
Emery was also inconsistent while at Arsenal, the first post-Arsene Wenger manager, before Mikel Arteta built on his work to kick on the club to title challengers once more.
Speaking to BoyleSports, who offer the latest Premier League odds , McGeady said: “Unai Emery is a top manager. His spell in Russia wasn't that successful because there were a lot of other factors getting in the way in my opinion. But from what I've seen, he was and is an absolutely top manager.
“We took him from Valencia to Spartak, where I think he'd just finished second in La Liga. We then won our first four or five games that season, which hadn't been done before.
“Even in the Champions League, we had Barcelona away in the first game and we were winning 1-0 with five minutes to go and Lionel Messi scored two.
“That was away in the Nou Camp. We could have actually beaten Barcelona in the Nou Camp, which I think would’ve been the first time since Ruben Kazan did it around 10 years before.
“The way his training methods were 10, 15 years ago, were the same as coaches are only just doing now so I wasn't surprised at all to see him when he left Spartak to have that success with Sevilla.
“He then went to PSG and to Arsenal and then sort of regarded as not a joke figure at Arsenal and was really underestimated.
“Now just look at the job he is doing at Aston Villa.”
Live on DAZN : Check your region for PFL and PFL Europe on DAZN . Click here for details.
