Simon Jordan believes Unai Emery has proved he was ‘the right manager at the wrong time’ for Arsenal after winning the Europa League with Aston Villa on Wednesday night.
Villa sealed an impressive 3-0 win over Freiburg in the Europa League final, making it the club’s first major European trophy since 1982.
Emery, meanwhile, has now won the Europa League five times in his career after three back-to-back seasons with Sevilla and once with Villarreal in 2021.
The Spaniard, who was sacked by Arsenal after 18 months in charge, will secure a top-four finish with Villa for the second time in the last three Premier League seasons if his side avoid defeat to Manchester City on the final day of the campaign this Sunday.
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Former Crystal Palace owner Jordan considers Emery to be the best manager in the Premier League and claims Arsenal ‘were not wrong’ in hiring him as Arsene Wenger’s successor eight years ago.
‘He [Emery] was sought after by Newcastle and they would have got him if Emery had a tad more gumption to push his chairman at the time, if you remember at the time Villarreal’s chairman went, ‘pack it in, you’re not going anywhere’. Then a little bit later Aston Villa came along,’ Jordan told talkSPORT.
‘What I liked was the interview he did last night where he said, ‘we are going to go on, this is not the end of the road’, it wasn’t said in some flash for cash way that he was getting a soundbite from, this is what he thinks, this is where he thinks the opportunity is.
‘It gives him a chance, I’ve described the handicaps they [Villa] have, I’d love him to overcome it because I personally think, despite my rancour about the ridiculous performance against Tottenham in that individual game, he’s a class act, I think he’s a class act as a manager, I think he’s a class act the way the communicates to the media.
‘It proves that Arsenal weren’t wrong when they went for him. Just the timing, he was the right person probably at the wrong time, and look at the language the media thought it was funny to ridicule his inability to articulate the way he thought he should do. No one is ridiculing him now.
‘In my view, he’s probably, given the tools he’s working with and the component parts he has, arguably the best manager in the Premier League.
‘Now people will suggest that’s a ridiculous statement to make because of Pep Guardiola, but I think if you compare all the contrasts and all the nuance and the different environments, I think he’s done a bloody brilliant job.
‘Emery is a very good manager in a very good football club. I think there’s still things for Aston Villa to achieve, I think what’s more likely for them to achieve is to stabilise a constant theme of them being in the Champions League and a top-four club.’
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