Carragher snubs Arteta in ‘third-best manager’ in Prem claim with boss ‘coaching better’ than Ten Hag
Jamie Carragher believes Aston Villa boss Unai Emery “is the third-best manager” in the Premier League, ahead of Mikel Arteta and Mauricio Pochettino.
Aston Villa are flying under the former Arsenal head coach, who has led them to 13 consecutive home league wins.
Their most recent home victory came on Sunday against Fulham, winning 3-1 on the day.
Emery took over a team in disarray following Steven Gerrard’s dismissal and has transformed them into top-four hopefuls and got them into the Europa Conference League.
The Villans are one of the favourites to win the European competition and should be considered dark horses to finish inside the Champions League places in the Premier League.
Carragher waxed lyrical about Emery during Sky Sports‘ coverage of the Premier League on Sunday, claiming that only Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp and Manchester City’s Treble-winning manager Pep Guardiola are better than them in the top flight.
“You can make an argument that Unai Emery is the third-best manager in this Premier League,” the ex-Liverpool defender said.
“You’ve probably got Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola, they are Champions League winners.
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“But when you look at the body of work of Unai Emery, not just at Aston Villa, he’s continually winning Europa Leagues.
“(Arsenal’s) Mikel Arteta and even (Chelsea’s) Mauricio Pochettino haven’t got that CV in terms of winning trophies.”
Carragher then compared Villa and Emery to Manchester United and Erik ten Hag, saying there is “absolutely no doubt” that the former are “better coached” than their top-four rivals.
“If you back over the last 12 months since Unai Emery came in, if you are talking about Manchester United, Aston Villa are a better-coached team than United,” Carragher added. “There is absolutely no doubt about that.
“The problem Villa might have is that I think they will go far in Europe because of the manager they have and the quality he has.
“I can see them doing really well in the Europa Conference League. So in the second half of the season, they could be playing a lot on Thursday and then Sunday.
“In terms of Manchester United and Newcastle, there’s a good chance they may not even have Europe in the second half of the season. They could quite easily finish bottom of their Champions League groups so they wouldn’t even go into the Europa League.
“That could be a deciding factor.”
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