Unai Emery faces old club Arsenal having turned Aston Villa into unlikely title contenders

Quite a way to bring up the half century. Unai Emery’s 50th match in charge of Aston Villa, the club where he arrived as manager less than 14 months ago when they were 17th in the Premier League, ranks as his finest in terms of the prestige of the opponents.

Manchester City, defeated 1-0, may not be in the best of form by their standards, but of all City’s recent setbacks – four matches without a win – Wednesday’s left them with fewest alibis.

The English and European champions have been leapfrogged in the table by a dynamic Villa, whose manager was praised by Pep Guardiola, his City counterpart, listing the qualities of the league’s sharpest risers.

“The organisation from Unai Emery, their physicality, their tempo, their speed, the bench, their high pressing, incredible defenders in the back four, the goalkeeper. That’s the reasons they are up there. We have to accept when a team is better than us.”

All this, said Guardiola, makes Villa contenders for a title City have claimed five times in the last six years.

Emery will park that idea, at least for a day or two, in the full knowledge that if his 51st match as Villa’s great transformer earns a fourth win in five, the question about an unlikely tilt at winning the Premier League will be asked even louder.

Arsenal, the league’s leaders are at Villa Park on Saturday, and that’s a resonant fixture for Emery. If overcoming Guardiola – in 14 meetings Emery had never previously won that managerial duel – was a feather in his cap, victory over his ex-employer would mean even more.

Just over four years ago, Arsenal sacked Emery, his 18-month stay terminated after a run of seven games without a win. The process began to appoint Mikel Arteta, then Guardiola’s assistant, as his