Aston Villa have appointed Unai Emery and Jorge Mendes appears to have played a key part in the Spaniard’s move away from Villarreal.
Villa sacked Steven Gerrard on Thursday night, almost straight after the 3-0 thumping away at Fulham.
A host of names were linked with the Villa job over the weekend and caretaker Aaron Danks worked wonders with a 4-0 thrashing of Brentford on Sunday.
Danks was never likely to land the job permanently and so it has proved after Villa announced their new manager out of nowhere on Sunday.
Aston Villa have appointed Unai Emery
Villa announced just after 8pm on Monday that Villarreal boss Unai Emery had agreed to join the club as their new manager.
This is a big-name appointment for Villa even if English fans may be a little perplexed.
Emery has been a superb manager in Spain, working wonders with Sevilla and Villarreal as they punched above their weight on the International stage.
The Spaniard replaced Arsene Wenger as Arsenal boss back in the summer of 2018 and despite taking them to the Europa League final, he was sacked less than 18 months into the job.
Emery is now back for another crack at English football and his move to Villa was somewhat influenced by Jorge Mendes.
The Portuguese super-agent is better known for having a major impact at Wolverhampton Wanderers, who have also been chasing a new manager.
Yet BBC Sport and Guillem Balague now claim that Mendes was the one who worked between Villa and Emery to get an offer on the table.
Emery allegedly asked Mendes for help and he thrashed out terms to engineer Emery’s move to Villa Park.
Wolves fans may well be left wondering why Mendes hasn’t done that for them, with caretaker Steve Davis in charge until after the World Cup.
Maybe Mendes felt that Emery wouldn’t be interested in Wolves, which is another sign of Villa’s pulling power.
Villa will be delighted anyway, landing a top-drawer manager with a great European record having given up on Gerrard just days ago.
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