Analysis: Aston Villa back on track and fired up for the Euro battle

You bet they aren’t.

The subsequent 2-1 victory over Tottenham delivered by Emery’s team ensured with two weekends of the Premier League season remaining they remain very much alive in the race for European football, level on points with the visitors in what looks like a straight fight for seventh place.

Fears their challenge might be fizzling out after back-to-back defeats on the road were vanquished by a sixth successive home win, the first time the club has achieved that in the top flight for 30 years.

By the end the only criticism was the slender margin of victory. The European spots could ultimately be decided by goal difference and Harry Kane’s controversial late consolation penalty, combined with Villa’s somewhat profligate first-half finishing after Jacob Ramsey’s eighth-minute opener, could yet prove crucial a couple of weeks from now.

On Saturday night, however, it was a minor quibble after another memorable afternoon to file in Villa’s increasingly bulky catalogue since Emery’s arrival, another occasion for supporters to be excited at the club’s present and wonder at the future possibilities, both in the short and long-term.

This was Villa’s first home win over Tottenham in nearly 15 years and the first time they have done the season’s double over the north London club since 1996. It is the manner of the victories which is most significant. Both were fully deserved and a result of Villa outplaying their opponents, rather than any backs-to-the-wall, smash-and-grab effort which might have typified past triumphs over representatives of the so-called Big Six.

It is much too early to proclaim a changing of the guard. Tottenham, troubled though they are, may yet finish above Villa this season. But this was still an afternoon when you watched and wondered whether the club’s lofty ambition of infiltrating the Premier League’s elite might not be so fanciful after all.

Under Emery, perceptions are changing fast. Only Mikel Arteta and Pep Guardiola have a better points-per-match record than the Spaniard, who took charge 23 matches ago when Villa were teetering above the drop zone and the gap to Tottenham was 14 points.

That the transformation has been achieved with almost entirely the same team which laboured through the opening months of the season under Steven Gerrard remains the most impressive aspect. If Emery can do this before he’s barely begun laying the foundations, so the theory goes, imagine how things might look when he’s finished building?

For now, you can only marvel at the early work. On Saturday, the performance of two players in particular summed up the turnaround.

The first of those was Douglas Luiz, whose curling 72nd-minute free-kick proved the winner. It was the midfielder’s fifth Premier League goal of a season in which he has doubled his tally from his first three years at the club.

Though scoring goals is not Luiz’s primary role, the increased numbers do serve to highlight the improved contributions of a player who from his arrival in a £15million move from Manchester City in 2019, right through to Emery’s appointment, too often flattered to deceive. There was more than a little surprise, in some quarters, at Villa’s decision to turn down three deadline day bids from Arsenal for his services last summer.

That now looks a shrewd move. True, it was Luiz who was caught napping in possession which allowed Kane to register the visitors’ first effort on goal of the day nearly 10 minutes into the second half. But otherwise the Brazilian was as tidy and efficient as he has been for the past six months, a steady component in a top half Premier League team.

Alongside him for the first hour in the middle, meanwhile, was John McGinn. So strong has been the skipper’s form since the turn of the year, it is easy to forget he did not start Emery’s first match in charge, having been demoted to the bench during the interim period between Gerrard’s departure and the new head coach’s arrival.

Now he is back to what he always was, the dependable figure who exudes calm in moments of crisis, the player for whom the crowd’s collective blood pressure noticeably lowers when on the ball.

McGinn’s dominance in midfield during the first half was best summed up when Kane, expecting the Scot to turn in one direction, was left sprawling on the floor when he went charging off in the other.

Villa were too quick and slick for sloppy opponents, Emery rewarded for recalling Leon Bailey to the starting XI when he laid on the opener for Ramsey.

The next challenge for the boss is developing a gameplan for this weekend’s trip to Liverpool, where Villa will aim to rediscover their spark on the road after taking just one point from the last three matches on their travels.

Emery claims his players should feel no pressure, only enjoyment at the challenge ahead. On Saturday, they played like a team who believed the message. They will head to Anfield rejuvenated, knowing their season is not done yet. Far from it.