PSV Eindhoven coach Peter Bosz admits he turned down the Aston Villa job before Unai Emery took over at the Premier League high-flyers.
You’d struggle to find many managers in European football enjoying a better season than Unai Emery is at Aston Villa. But Peter Bosz arguably belongs to that very exclusive club.
His PSV Eindhoven side look like Champions-elect already, and we’ve only just reached the winter break. Bosz’s team have won 16 out of 16 games so far, picking up 100 per cent of the points available and putting a ten-gap gap between themselves and reigning champions Feyenoord at the top of the Eredivisie table.
The former Ajax, Borussia Dortmund and Lyon coach has also instilled his trademark brand of free-flowing, chance-a-minute football at the Philips Stadium. Often to devastating effect.
Aston Villa held talks with PSV manager Peter Bosz
Speaking to Algemeen Dagblad, Bosz admits that concerns over whether or not he would be able to translate his Total Voetbal principles into English football played a key role in his decision to walk away from talks with Aston Villa a year ago.
He also held discussions with Wolves prior to Julen Lopetegui’s arrival at Molineux.
“I thought; ‘Can I bring the football that suits me?’,” he reflects.
Bosz’s free-wheeling approach proved to be more than a hindrance than a help at Dortmund and Lyon, the 60-year-old struggling to balance his attacking principles with a solid backline in leagues where defensive openness tends to be punished by more high-quality opposition.
It’s telling that, at Aston Villa, Emery’s success has been built upon a rock-solid foundation. The likes of which Bosz failed to instil in Germany and France.
Villa can go top by beating Sheffield United
“Sure, Aston Villa have invested heavily, but all clubs in England do that,” Bosz adds, hailing the man who took over from Steven Gerrard instad back in 2022:
“It is especially good (work from) Unai Emery. He proves once again that the choice of a trainer is the most important within a club.”
Emery’s Villa can overtake Liverpool and Arsenal at the top of the Premier League table with a win at home to Sheffield United on Friday night.
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