Aston Villa have shown great improvement under Unai Emery.
The Spanish manager has turned them into a formidable unit and they have performed at a high level consistently. Aston Villa managed to secure Champions League qualification under his guidance at the end of last season as well.
They have impressed against elite clubs like Bayern Munich in the Champions League this season.
Aston Villa have not only managed to bring in quality players, they have made themselves very difficult to beat home and away.
Unai Emery makes Aston Villa demand
Emery is keen to continue the progress at the West Midlands club, and he has now made a specific demand to the club hierarchy so that his team can prepare better for games.
The Spanish manager believes that his team needs to train later on in the day, especially because they are competing in Europe now. However, the weather in the United Kingdom gets dark late in the afternoon and therefore Emery wants the club to install floodlights in the training ground so that the players can train around 5 PM and 6 PM.
In an interview with RTVE, he said: “When you leave your country everything changes, the food, the schedules, even the schedules they have, since here in England it is difficult to see training in the afternoons, and in fact in this sports city there are no lights to train, something that we want to install because, especially now playing in Europe, we need to train at 5:00 p.m. in the afternoon, at 6:00 p.m. in the afternoon and in winter here at 3:30 p.m. it is night.”
These are clearly legitimate demands from the Aston Villa manager, and it is fair to assume that the club hierarchy will accept them. Aston Villa will have to continue their growth on and off the pitch if they want to get back to their former glories. There is no doubt that they are a competitive team, but they need more evolution in order to truly match up to the European elite.