Conan Doherty

They have to keep him.

He's been so important throughout the year, and Emi Buendia is almost the personification of this Aston Villa, where when it's not going great, it's really not good, and when it's going great, it's better than you could ever expect it, and you love it all the more, but he's a player that I probably thought, okay, we can upgrade on him, and yet he's so important to the team.

So during the week, Monday Night Football, they revisited their pre-season predictions and Gary Neville and Jamie Carrigan.

It was interesting to see that none of them had Villa in the top six, which now when you think about that they've qualified through the league,

for Champions League again so they're going to come top five at least they've won the Europa League and the last two teams that were in the Europa League final Spurs and United basically tanked their seasons so they could focus on European football I just thought it was interesting that expectations weren't that high for Villa and yet they succeed and he's not nominated for manager of the season like was there any talk about that last night do you find that as strange as I do?

There was a great detail in Konza's piece.

Sorry that it ruined a lot of your book, the next chapter of your book.

He said he went up to talk to Emery after being dropped for a game.

And he didn't even get into the office and Emery just said to him, if you're here to talk about the lineup, you can leave my office right now.

So he obviously has total control of the players as well.

They seem to buy into everything he's selling them.

We're talking about a ceiling, and you and I might not believe that they can...

get much further than this what does emory believe does emory actually think that they can challenge for a league title with a couple of a bit more help does he actually think like he's always right to point out that they should never be in the top five and he points to the other clubs that should be in the top five but does he is there is there something in him do you think that he's thinking i could i could i could challenge arsenal if you can just get me a little bit of help

And interestingly, so Arteta is the Premier League champion.

Unai Emery is the Europa League champion.

And Doni Araola, speaking of punching above our weights, he's three managers all from the Basque country alone, never mind Spain.

He looks like he's going to qualify for the Champions League because I think Villa will lose to Man City.

I think they'll come fifth.

Is he a bit mad to be leaving here?

Does he even want to qualify for the Champions League if he's already decided he's leaving?