This week marks one year since Unai Emery arrived at Aston Villa, and the club celebrated the occasion in style on Sunday when they demolished West Ham United 4-1 at Villa Park.
Across the past 12 months, Emery has had nothing short of a transformational impact on his new club. When he arrived, Villa had won just three of their opening 12 Premier League matches and sat just three points above the relegation zone. A fight to avoid the drop looked inevitable.
Instead, Emery led a mammoth turnaround which saw Villa match the club's joint-most wins in a 38-match season (18) en route to securing European football for the first time since 2010/11. In this campaign, they’ve picked up from where they left off and sit fifth in the Premier League table after nine rounds, just four points shy of leaders Tottenham.
Emery’s positive influence on the collective Aston Villa squad is undeniable. However, the individual improvements he’s engineered for key members of the team are just as impressive.
The likes of Tyrone Mings, John McGinn and Douglas Luiz have all found new levels under the former Villarreal boss, although, perhaps his greater success story so far has been the evolution of Ollie Watkins.
The forward lost his way under ex-manager Steven Gerrard and struggled for form in the early part of last season, scoring just two league goals prior to Emery’s appointment. Yet under the Spaniard, he looks a different beast and he was one of Villa's star men again on Sunday as he scored and assisted in his side's emphatic win.
Those contributions took his tally to five goals and a further five assists for the Premier League season so far, only Mohamed Salah (11) can better that return in terms of goal involvements.
His form has seen him quickly reinstated into the England national team set-up, and it was his manager’s influence that he credited as being a big reason for it. "I think my mindset has changed since the boss has come in, Unai Emery at Villa," said the forward after he netted the winner for England against Australia earlier this month. "He's filled me with a lot of confidence. I've definitely improved in these last 18 months."
Confidence is, of course, a key element of any attacker and Watkins has it in abundance right now. However, it's subtle tactical changes made by Emery to his role in this Villa side that have been key to upping his output from a goals and assist perspective.
"I’m being smart with my runs,” he explained to the Guardian in an interview earlier this year. “Before I was running into the channels and into the corners, and doing a lot of work for the team. Now I’m staying within the width of the box and timing my runs.”
With that in mind, it's no coincidence that this season his touches in the penalty area have shot up to 7.29 per 90 (Opta). His average last season was 4.73 and 5.27 in the campaign before that.
That's inevitably boosted his output in terms of shots per 90 (3.40) and shot-creating actions per 90 (3.75), too, both career highs in the Premier League for the forward.
While Watkins' direct attacking output is trending up, things such as dribble attempts (1.53) and passes per 90 (15.4) are on the decline. This illustrates Watkins is now focused on finishing moves, rather than getting bogged down in trying to help create them.
The fact only Erling Haaland and Salah have scored more Premier League goals across this calendar year than the Villa man (17) suggests we're seeing more here than just a purple patch in form, and Villa's hierarchy were right to get the striker tied down on a new lucrative five-year deal earlier this month.
Watkins should now be considered one of the Premier League's most lethal forward players, and Emery deserves a large portion of the praise for helping him get there.
