Matt Maher: Jamie Carragher is wrong about Aston Villa and the Champions League

Few in the world are. Whatever their current troubles, United are among a handful of global mega clubs.

Barcelona and Real Madrid are the only two you would say with any confidence are bigger. Bayern Munich are probably on a par, along with Liverpool.

No doubt you can quibble over the order, yet most would agree those five sit above all others in terms of honours, fanbase, wealth and pretty much every other category you can choose.

And yet Jamie Carragher, former Liverpool defender-turned-pundit, has gotten himself into rather a mess this week when attempting to make the simple argument of why Unai Emery might be interested in leaving Villa and joining United.

“He wants to win the Champions League. He’s not going to do that at Aston Villa,” explained Carragher, following the Red Devils’ dire defeat to Bournemouth last Sunday.

That prompted an angry online reaction from Villa supporters, which resulted in Carragher telling them to, er, “get lost” in a rather crude and offensive manner during an appearance on The Overlap podcast later in the week.

“Aston Villa will never be Man United,” he declared.

At this stage we should probably give Carragher the benefit of the doubt and assume the “never” he referred to was in relation to his own lifetime.

Bringing infinity into any prediction is, no pun intended, never the smartest move. No doubt back in 1869, few people would have argued with anyone claiming man would never walk on the moon.

For a far better analogy, a century ago any football pundit would have felt on pretty safe ground claiming Manchester United would never be Villa. Time and fortunes can and do change.

But we are getting away here from the point. What really irked Villa fans was not the suggestion they are a smaller club than United but the notion Emery cannot win the Champions League with them.

To that the only reasonable response would be to ask Carragher: ‘Just how short is your memory?’

It has been written in this space before, ad nauseum, how achievements in the Midlands tend to be quickly forgotten elsewhere.

Yet it was only 18 months ago Villa were very close to knocking out eventual winners Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League quarter-finals.

Were it not for a couple of brilliant Gianluigi Donnarumma saves, or had Marco Asensio showed just a little more composure in front of goal, it is far from beyond the realms of possibility Villa would have won the tie.

Arsenal over two legs, the second at home, and Inter Milan would have stood between Emery’s side and the trophy. Bearing in mind the way Villa finished that season, winning nine out of the final 11 Premier League matches, it isn’t hard to envision a scenario where they went on to win it.

Regardless, the tie with PSG shifted perceptions and altered horizons. Nobody who watched it - and Carragher surely did - could now rank Emery winning the Champions League with Villa an impossibility.

This season they are joint-top of the league phase table with PSG after three matches. Maybe you would not put them on your list of favourites but they will be in the knockout rounds again, quite possibly starting in the last-16 again.

From then, you just never know how the draw will play out. Such is the strength of Premier League clubs in Europe, it is only some of Villa’s domestic rivals, along with Bayern, Barcelona, Real and PSG, who would be favoured to beat them.

In Emery, meanwhile, they have a manager with a track record of upsetting the odds. It is only four years since he masterminded victories over Juventus and Bayern Munich when taking Villarreal to the semi-finals. That’s something else which appears to have slipped Carragher’s memory.

It’s a shame because, while this column is obviously taking him to task, the former England centre-back is generally a very decent commentator.

His national newspaper column is rarely less than engaging, while in the age of the hot take his arguments are usually well thought through and backed up by evidence. There will be plenty of Villa fans (and this writer, for that matter) who agree with his assertion Emery is now the best manager in the Premier League.

But he’s simply plain wrong to say the Spaniard can’t win the Champions League at Villa. All the evidence says otherwise.

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Carragher’s general point about the United job being attractive to any manager stands, though increasingly it feels a moot one.

A better question might be just how interested are the current United hierarchy in hiring the best in class?

As explained in this space last week, the sheer cost of prising Emery from Villa makes it a non-starter.

Yet why the apparent reluctance to pursue Antonio Conte, a serial winner who is by some distance the best available, currently unattached candidate?

Forget for a moment any analysis of the “fit”, just look at the record - five Serie A titles, with three different clubs, a Premier League title and FA Cup with Chelsea.

Instead Michael Carrick, whose only previous experience was managing Middlesbrough, remains in post.

There’s no doubt United are a mega club. They won’t remain one forever, if at some point they don’t remember to act like it.