Between 2013/14 and 2020/21 the Spaniard won the Europa League four times (Sevilla x3, Villarreal) and was runner-up on another occasion (with Arsenal), whilst he also won two French cups and two French league cups with Paris Saint-Germain.
Notwithstanding his excellence in getting his teams to do the business during a league season, it’s clear that a cup run is something Emery enjoys and excels at in terms of preparation and execution.
Given that the latter stages of many cup competitions fall in what would be classed as the business end of the season – when injuries begin to bite and there’s a ‘cup final’ every week – Emery’s successes to date are no mean feat.
In the Preston North End vs Aston Villa FA Cup tie there might’ve been a giant killing on the cards, but once again Emery played his hand just right.
Villa were dominant despite goalless first half
Marcus Rashford didn’t open the scoring for the Villains until the 58th minute, suggesting that the Championship side were making life a little more difficult than expected for the visitors to Deepdale.
Indeed, Preston had conceded just one goal in their last eight first halves of matches at home across all competitions and had only gone in at the break behind in a match in five of their last 25 at Deepdale.
However, one shot on target to Villa’s seven, no corners to the Midlanders’ nine and 28% possession to the 72% that Emery’s side enjoyed across the 90 minutes tells a completely different story.
What ended as a dominant 3-0 victory was Villa’s biggest FA Cup win since beating Hull City in January 1999, also by the same scoreline.
For the on-loan Manchester United ace too, the match provided a platform to enable Rashford to score his first goals for his new club in what was his eighth appearance and his third as a starter.
In that time, the club have lost just once, with only Mo Salah (10), Bruno Fernandes (10), and Marco Asensio (7) being involved in more goals than Rashford (6-2G, 4A) across all competitions.
His brace also meant that no Villa player has scored more than him in this season’s FA Cup run, and with five quarter-final goals in total since his debut in the competition in March 2016, no other player at any club has more in that round of the competition in the same time frame.
As if to further evidence Rashford’s importance to his new side, he has had five or more shots and created three or more chances in two of his eight appearances for the Villans, which is as many times as he managed to do so across his final 113 outings for Manchester United across all competitions.
With a recent England recall to boot, talk about a change being as good as a rest.
By contrast, fellow front man, Ollie Watkins, has had a torrid time of late. The centre-forward has failed to score in each of his last 15 appearances as a substitute in all competitions (399 mins) since netting on his first sub outing for Aston Villa in September 2020.
Unai Emery’s mastery of the cup competitions continues
Aerially, during the Preston game, the hosts were much better, posting a 73.3% success rate in that regard, but as football purists will tell you: ‘if football was played in the air, they’d make a pitch in the sky.’
It was the only area where Paul Heckingbottom can say that his side excelled, though the history books will show that his team were outfought, out-thought and ultimately sent crashing out of the competition.
In the cold light of day, the Preston manager may rue the fact that his side never got their passing game going, with 30 passes from goalkeeper David Cornell, the most from any North End player during the match. Frankly, that tells its own story.
Eight of Villa’s starting XI played at least 30 passes, with two more only just below that threshold, suggesting that although it did take almost until the hour mark for the visitors to find the net, they were never truly in trouble.
In terms of passing accuracy, there was no contest either. Only Emi Martinez and Morgan Rogers dipped below 80% for the men in claret and blue, whilst just four of Preston’s starting XI managed to get above that figure.
On the front foot throughout, Villa had 16 shots in the match, and four of Rashford’s five (the most of any player in the game) were on target. His eight touches in the box were only two less than the entire Preston team too.
The 22 tackles made by the hosts did at least evidence a hard-working ethic, although only nine of those were successful, just one more than Emery’s side, who had 13 total tackles by comparison.
Villa were clinical when they needed to be, and three goals scored in a 13 minute period ended the tie as a contest. When Preston review the game and their performance, they will see that they huffed and puffed for long periods but just didn’t have the killer instinct when required.
From Unai Emery’s point of view, he will justifiably believe that his side now has every chance of getting to their first FA Cup final since 1999/2000 and going all the way to a first FA Cup title since 1956/57.
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