Two aspirant clubs, a pair of transformative managers, both aiming to crash the elite. Both coaches deeply admire the other, but it was Roberto De Zerbi, lately linked with Real Madrid, who received a lesson from the greater wiles of Unai Emery, and a masterclass in centre-forward play by Villa’s Ollie Watkins.
Emery’s innovations may have been chewed up and spat out by Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain but he remains a manager of meticulous research, often knowing his opponents perhaps even better than they do themselves. Time and again, his Villa team picked at the weakness at the point of transition that is the soft underbelly of Brighton’s counter-pressing machine.
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