'Rate him higher than Frenkie de Jong': Pundit says Aston Villa star good enough for Barcelona
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Relegated from the Premier League back in 2023 and now tipped for Real Madrid and rated higher than Frenkie de Jong, Unai Emery has transformed the career of one Aston Villa ace.
The mark of a truly elite manager is whether they can turn good players into great ones.
And as an Aston Villa side containing many players who struggled badly under Steven Gerrard defeated Bayern Munich in the Champions League, Unai Emery’s remarkable success story in the Midlands acts as testament to what can happen if a club gets a managerial change right.
Aston Villa’s Jhon Duran grabbed the headlines after lobbing Bayern’s Manuel Neuer, but Emery’s entire roster performed impeccably to a man in the most fitting of tributes to the dearly departed Gary Shaw.
Morgan Rogers and Jaden Philogene were playing in the Championship last season. Ezri Konsa started out of position at right-back and impressed as he always does.
Youri Tielemans, meanwhile, appeared at risk of becoming a classic case of wasted potential as he and Leicester limped to relegation a year-and-a-half earlier.
Now playing arguably the best and most consistent football of his career, Tielemans skippered Belgium in their Nations League draw with Italy on Friday night.
Aston Villa’s Youri Tielemans rated higher than Frenkie de Jong
This was only the third time Tielemans has ever donned the armband for the Rote Duivels.
And, in the words of Het Nieuwsblad reporter Nico Dijkshoorn, Tielemans resembled ‘the captain of a sinking ship’.
A gleaming lighthouse radiating over a sea of mediocrity, the Aston Villa playmaker produced many ‘futile but beautiful attempts at genius’ as Domenico Tedesco’s team bobbed around in circles like a dinghy with a puncture.
For Filip Joos, the Belgian football expert speaking on the 90 Minutes podcast, Tielemans would not look out of place amongst the more established elite teams in European football.
And that includes a Barcelona side who, in Joos’ opinion, have an inferior talent in their ranks in the shape of the mercurially-talented but oft-injured Frenkie de Jong.
“I rate him higher than Frenkie de Jong at FC Barcelona,” Joos argues. “I don’t understand why the European top hasn’t pushed for Youri Tielemans yet.”
Unai Emery convinced Tielemans with Champions League football
The Aston Villa supporters will understandably take issue with the second part of Joos’ argument.
Emery’s side might have been dining away from Europe’s top table for a while. But, as they returned triumphantly to the Champions League stage with an already-iconic 1-0 win over Bayern Munich, both Aston Villa and Youri Tielemans looked very much at home in the continent’s premiere club competition.
“The manager was selling me this idea of playing Champions League and I really bought into it. And that's one of the reasons I signed,” Tielemans told reporters in September, Emery as good as his word as he guided Villa to a fourth-place finish.
"The fact that we got the Champions League after my first year here is earlier than expected. But the fact that we are here means that we're doing well and we need to carry on in this way."
"[Emery] improves you as a player. I think his tactical analysis of the game is just first-class. He can really sell it to you, like I said he sold me his project.
“The fact that he can do that on the footballing stage is what we want as footballers and that's what is really exciting about him."
