Unai Emery: Rewarding to build Aston Villa squad with limited budget

By SABC Sport
26th October 2026

Unai Emery admits he would relish the chance to recruit some of football's finest talents but insists he is enjoying the task of building Aston Villa into a team capable of challenging at the highest level.

Villa have enjoyed considerable success since Emery's arrival four years ago, winning a European trophy and securing two Champions League qualifications. However, financial constraints have continued to shape the club's transfer strategy.

Six key players, including Ollie Watkins, Morgan Rogers, Youri Tielemans, Lucas Digne, Emi Martinez and Ezri Konsa, were among those to depart or be replaced during the summer, with Villa prioritising younger and generally cheaper recruits.

Zion Suzuki has arguably strengthened the goalkeeping department, while Nicolas Jackson has impressed as a replacement for Watkins. Joao Gomes and Johan Manzambi have also made encouraging contributions.

"More than in the last year even," said Emery. "We are building a team in a successful way in the first year, but we did not change the squad so much.

"We had a lot of challenges and I was enjoying those good performances, but this year especially more because we changed more than normal.

"We have a lot of players to understand everything, connecting with their skills and style of play to be strong and be closer to winning.

"How we have won against Fenerbahce, but repeating at the beginning of the press conference, we have a lot of work to do and to improve."

"Every year we needed to sell some players, but we have bought players too, with potential. This summer was a little bit different; we sold more than we usually do," he added.

"We were buying younger and more players than we did before. That needs time to get them to understand our demands.

"But I'm not frustrated. I like to build teams, to watch them individually and collectively to see how they progress. I'd like sometimes to buy the best players in the world! But I accept how we are doing and what is our capacity.

"But the club is doing a huge amount of effort in a lot of things in our budget. The next step forward is Villa Park and the 50,000 capacity. We are moving in the right direction, trying to be intelligent and work maybe even harder than other clubs to exploit our young players, with their talent, but I like it."