Aston Villa’s management structure has diversified considerably over the last seven months with owners Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens plotting the next stage of the club’s development.

After five years at the helm, the CEO and minority investor Christian Purslow departed earlier this month with ex-Philadelphia 76ers president Chris Heck arriving to oversee all important off-field matters and help globalise the club brand.

In his position as president of business operations, Heck will be based at Villa Park and responsible for maximising the club’s growth opportunities.

Perhaps the biggest change, though, has been instigated by the hands-on Sawiris who has granted head coach Unai Emery more power at the club than any other previous manager under his watch.

The shift has seen multiple changes as Emery builds a huge support network in charge of running the football department from Bodymoor Heath.

Ahead of 2023-24, when Villa will return to UEFA competition for the first time in 13 years, The Athletic analyses the new structure and takes a closer look at the key decision-makers on Emery’s team.

 

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Unai Emery (head coach)

The head coach and the most powerful figure at the club, behind the owners.

Emery is on a mission to make Villa great again and is going through the gears at pace.

He claims his management style is still the same as when he started out 19 years ago. Emery wants Villa to play without fear and be the “protagonists”. He’s a meticulous planner and a football obsessive. “The man with the whistle”, as he was known in Spain due to his regular breaking up of training drills in search of perfection, is still as thorough in his approach.

Long video sessions are a fixture of his management, and his attention to detail remains a constant. He formulates specific game plans for every match that often change dramatically from week to week depending on the opponent.

The Spaniard is a master in UEFA competition and his four Europa League victories (three at Sevilla, one at Villarreal) and vast experience of the Champions League should help Villa when their own exciting adventure on the continent starts later this year.

Will the additional games make it tougher for Emery to plan for opponents? “No, I want the extra games,” he has said consistently, insisting that he learns more about his players during competitive outings.

Monchi (president of football operations)

A new addition to the management structure, Monchi arrives with a wealth of experience, largely from his two spells at Sevilla.

It was Monchi who turned to Emery in January 2013, after the manager’s miserable and short-lived time in Russia at Spartak Moscow. That decision was a masterstroke as Sevilla won three Europa League titles in a row, signing players on the cheap and moving them on at a profit both through Monchi’s talent-spotting network and Emery’s ability to significantly improve their skills.

Monchi’s spell at Roma is the one that still draws criticism, but his brief at Villa will be slightly different.

Emery will also have more of a say over signings than when the pair worked together in Spain.

Having a serious operator like Monchi — who knows how Emery works and what type of players interest him — will help. The two get on well and share the same footballing philosophy, but are not joined at the hip. They have also disagreed over signings in the past.

Back then, Monchi had more authority. But this is Emery’s baby now and he will have the overriding say on who comes and goes.

Damian Vidagany (director of football operations)

A key addition to Emery’s team in November and a figure who the manager knew from his time at Valencia (2008-2012) but had not worked with since, Vidagany has been most visible sitting next to Emery at press conferences and occasionally helping translate complex questions or provide more context around some of the manager’s answers.

But, internally, he has an important role acting as a go-between the manager and other members of staff.

He is now the director of football operations and will play an important role in the day-to-day running of the training ground, taking some of the pressure off Emery and allowing him to focus more of his time on the areas that most matter.

Towards the end of last season, Vidagany’s presence became more noticeable and he stood alongside the manager and owners during a lap of appreciation after the 2-1 win over Brighton & Hove Albion at Villa Park secured a return to Europe on the final afternoon.

Johan Lange (global director of football development and international academies)

Villa’s former sporting director has a new role where he will report directly to the owners.

He gets on well with Emery and his coaching team and is both liked and respected by Sawiris and Edens, who have been impressed with the Dane’s body of work since arriving in 2020.

Lange, a no-ego, low-maintenance operator, has remained private during his time at the club but will no longer be involved in the day-to-day procedures around the first team. Instead, he is expected to assist Villa when required while helping the owners in their plans to build a strong multi-club model.

Portuguese side Vitoria Guimaraes and Egyptian academy ZED FC are already part of the portfolio.

Alberto Benito (global technical role)

One of Emery’s tightest allies in football.

Benito, 51, first met Emery during their playing days together at Toledo. They were room-mates and shared a love of studying the game.

When Almeria won promotion to La Liga in 2007 for the first time in their history, the pair struck up a winning formula with Emery as the manager and Benito the sporting director. On days off they regularly drove to Madrid together to watch Real and Atletico train, constantly in search of new ideas.

It was also Benito who recommended Emery to Valencia, knowing that the bright young manager was destined for bigger things as he came towards the end of his contract in 2008.

Benito’s most recent role was at Real Betis where he worked as the chief scout and helped the club qualify for Europe three seasons in a row. He also had stints with Emery at Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal and will be part of a new-look recruitment team at Villa.

The scout/consultant Pablo Rodriguez, who recently joined and was another one of Emery’s former team-mates, will work closely with Benito.

Rob Mackenzie (global technical role)

All the current scouts at Villa, including the chief scout Alex Fraser, will continue to report in to Mackenzie, who now has a “global technical role” understood to be on the same level as Benito.

Mackenzie, who was influential at Leicester City when the 2015-6 Premier League winners signed Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante, has helped build the bulk of Villa’s current squad after he was hired in August 2020.

Previously, the process of identifying targets at Villa was initiated by the data team before Mackenzie and Fraser followed up with scouting missions. Lange then became involved further down the process, along with the manager at the time.

With Emery now having the bulk of the power, it remains to be seen how that will affect the recruitment process and whether roles will be tweaked.

Pako Ayestaran (assistant head coach)

Watch Emery closely as he paces up and down his technical area during a match and you will see him regularly interacting with his new right-hand man, Pako.

It takes a certain individual to dedicate the same time and effort to the job as Emery but Pako has been up for it from the start, often working as late as the main man and contributing with crucial advice at the right time.

Recruiting Pako was a smart move by Emery on his return to the Premier League. The assistant had experienced it all before with Liverpool and was the No 2 to Rafa Benitez when they won the Champions League in 2005. He’d also spent time in Spain, Israel, Mexico and Portugal working as a manager so therefore understands the pressures.

Achieving this hire was key as Emery watched his former long-term assistant, Juan Carlos Carcedo, step out of the manager’s shadow and start his own journey as a No 1 with stints at Ibiza and Real Zaragoza.

Pablo Villanueva (first-team coach)

Known as Pablo Villa, which is bound to cause confusion somewhere down the line, he is another one of Emery’s trusted lieutenants. The pair met during Villaneuva’s playing days, and he has been alongside the manager in a coaching role for almost a decade.

Emery likes to start new adventures with those he has shared ups and downs with in the past, and Villa has seen it all; from the triumphant days in the Europa League to that infamous night in Camp Nou when Barcelona overturned a four-goal deficit to beat PSG in the Champions League round of 16 back in 2017.

Those battle scars have since helped — no one in Emery’s coaching team gets carried away until the job is fully complete. It’s why Villa were able to stay organised and committed in their end-of-season push for Europe — they had experienced coaches guiding the way.

Pablo Villa, like Pako, helps organise training sessions, assists in team selection and prepares team meetings. He knows Emery inside out from times together at Sevilla, PSG, Arsenal, Villarreal and now Villa.

He can be quite fiery in the dugout during games and is often vocal on the training pitch but, away from the action, he is friendly and affable.

Longer-serving staff at Bodymoor Heath say the entire coaching team settled into new surroundings quickly and with little hassle. Appraisals all return a similar message: that the coaches are likeable and good company, but also focused firmly on getting the most out of each day.

Staff often go out for dinner together in an attempt to create a “family” feeling which appears to be working well.

Rodri (individual coach)

While Pako and Pablo Villa assist in team coaching, Antonio Rodriguez Saravia focuses solely on the individual and is known as a detailed and versatile operator.

Emery got to know him well at Villarreal and he was quick to bring him along on the new journey at Villa.

Rodri, 52, takes players aside for extra work to explain in detail exactly what is required from the manager. These can be little pointers, as simple as showing players how to position their bodies when they receive the ball. In Alex Moreno’s case, it was how to play the role of left-back in an Emery team. For Ollie Watkins, it was how to stay more central and only make runs within the width of the box.

Tyrone Mings spoke glowingly of Rodri recently. “I’ve never been involved with a coaching staff who have a member with the job title of specifically improving each individual,” he said. “Rodri works with people on an individual basis and such is the attention to detail, he knows pretty much everything about every position.

“When I first started working with him, I thought it would be great because he understands defending, but then I saw him working with Douglas Luiz and Ollie Watkins in great detail too.”

Emery tries to simplify the demands for each player and tells them only to be concerned about doing the job in their position. Rodri’s work further highlights this.

Javi Garcia (goalkeeper coach)

If there was a prize for the nicest member of the group then it would probably go to Garcia. Towards the end of the season, a Thursday Dinner Club developed and that’s where the Spanish got to know other staff on a deeper level.

Garcia had big gloves to fill after Neil Cutler — the goalkeeper coach who was close to Emi Martinez — was released on Emery’s arrival, but he settled in just fine. He is extremely detailed in his approach and is keen to experiment with new technology as he constantly looks for marginal gains in the goalkeeping department.

He’s another trusted member of the team who has been with Emery at Sevilla, PSG, Arsenal and Villarreal.

Moises de Hoyo (strength and conditioning coach)

De Hoyo plays a leading role on the performance side, reporting directly to Emery with whom he worked at both Sevilla and Villarreal.

The Spaniard had a four-month spell at Watford, but left in June 2021 to return to his homeland where his family had remained. Emery wanted him on board when he took the Villa job and he has since become an important part of the team.

Victor Manas (video analyst)

Everyone has their own impression of Emery’s now legendary video sessions which go into painstaking detail and are, in the words of some players, “just too long”. For those who are committed to improving, though, they are the difference between winning and losing.

Before every game, Emery holds three video meetings: one on the opposition, another on set-piece situations and the third to highlight patterns of play and reinforce concepts ahead of matchday.

Manas, who was hired by Benito at Almeria to support Emery and has since worked with the manager at Sevilla, Arsenal, PSG and Villarreal, is in charge of pulling it all together. He has also known Emery from the start of his coaching career and has seen it all, tapping into the manager’s passion for video analysis.

His main job is to break down games and then deliver information to the coaching staff. Manas will create the structure of the presentation, often starting with as many as 80 clips around one focus area, before Emery gradually cuts them down.

During games, Manas sits in the stands with his analysts live coding each match and helps prepare debrief videos. Like the rest of the coaching team, they all work closely together at Bodymoor Heath as a collective.

Austin MacPhee (set-piece coach)

On a matchday, Emery owns the technical area. He paces around furiously and is in sole control of the team with his assistants patiently remaining in the dugout, allowing the master to focus on the job at hand.

That is until MacPhee leaps to his feet to issue instructions around set pieces — a direction decided by Emery, who has recognised the qualities of a specialist he inherited when joining — and has since enjoyed plotting creative attacking moves together in training.

MacPhee wasted no time showing Emery his clever ideas and that has paid off with fewer goals conceded from free kicks and corners and, more importantly, an uplift in attack.

Throughout his coaching career, Emery has taken a keen interest in free kicks, throw-ins and corners, with plenty of attention placed on such movements in training. Players who have worked under him in the past laughed that they did not have enough fingers to remember all the routines that he would often prepare.

MacPhee, who is also the set-piece coach for Scotland, has helped set up new routines that have taken opponents by surprise. He has created a new culture at the club where every player is aware of his responsibilities during a routine, and that has helped build a strong team spirit.

He is now also a valued member of the coaching team and a big part of Emery’s plans.

(Top photo: Neville Williams/Aston Villa FC via Getty Images)