In preparation for the trip to Wearside, Unai Emery turned to Netflix.
He watched the Sunderland ’Til I Die documentary series, hoping to gauge what awaited him and his Aston Villa team.
Most of its 17 episodes chart Sunderland’s demise and swift spiral down the divisions from Premier League to third-tier League One in successive seasons of the previous decade, laying bare football’s brutality and how quickly a club’s standing can change and be relinquished.
Although Villa have not sunk to those depths in the early weeks of the new top-flight season, the atmosphere around them is nosediving.
The documentary’s title, taken from one of the north-east club’s main terrace chants, was bellowed around the Stadium of Light by the crowd as full-time approached on Sunday. Emery, by that stage, had conceded the result, a 1-1 draw against the newly-promoted home side — despite Villa having played with an 11-v-10 advantage more for over an hour.
Emery shook the hand of counterpart Regis Le Bris before beating a rapid retreat. He headed down the tunnel 30 seconds before the full-time whistle blew, convinced the game’s outcome was settled and that all hope of returning to Birmingham with three points was lost.
If the first half was what has become expected from Villa — cumbersome and uninspiring — the second plunged into even grimmer territory. When the fourth official raised the board to signal five minutes of additional time, home supporters rallied. They had conviction their team — a player short from the 34th minute after left-back Reinildo Mandava’s sending off — could yet be victorious.
“Come on, a last-minute winner!” yelled one young fan near the press box.
The contrast in mood for the two camps was evident, even if the match eventually finished level. If you glanced in the opposite direction to that particular Sunderland supporter, a smattering of Villa’s travelling support, positioned high up in the stands, started to trickle out of the ground.
Villa, Champions League quarter-finalists back in April, continue to stumble around in these early weeks of 2025-26, insipid and porous.
Moments earlier, Ezri Konsa banged his hand down on the pitch after Ollie Watkins failed to apply contact on Jadon Sancho’s cross when to do so was to salvage an away win.
But victory would have failed to mask a profoundly disturbing performance. Sunderland had twice as many shots on target (4-2), with a higher expected goals (xG) rate. Villa’s only effort after that early red card was Matty Cash’s long-range strike to put them ahead on 67 minutes, which broke a run of 128 days without a league goal.
This looked like a team on their knees, far removed from running eventual Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain close before losing 5-4 on aggregate less than six months ago.
In the weeks following that contest, PSG officials privately admitted Villa were the best team they faced on their way to glory in UEFA’s top club competition. The performance in Sunderland yesterday could not have been more different.
Emery was irritable as he marched down the tunnel (again, before the final whistle) and into the away changing room, before hurtling from one post-match interview to another with a dead-eyed stare and no interest in sugar-coating matters.
This was him at his most critical, coming with a confession that his team were not doing what he wanted, having attempted a more positive take on Villa’s winless start to the season earlier in the week, insisting the goalless draw at Everton last Saturday was going to lay the foundations for better things to come.
Emery spoke out about his team’s performance (Ian Horrocks/Sunderland AFC via Getty Images)
So it was ironic that while his players trudged off the pitch, a few minutes after their manager, D:Ream’s Things Can Only Get Better boomed around the stadium. Gentle mocking.
Villa’s lack of goals has felt like a surface-level issue for a team with many deficiencies. The league season is only five games old, yet the mood among squad and supporters alike is already weary. Players have spoken privately of feeling the pressure and, throughout the summer, eagerly awaited renewed impetus via the transfer market. The atmosphere around the training ground, already low, is expected to worsen this week. Internally, there is a flatness. Throughout last week, close observers speculated on the cause, but none could find the root issue.
It is a collection of everything, starting with last season’s final-day defeat at Manchester United, where Villa missed out on Champions League qualification on goal difference. Emery’s thousand-yard stare at the full-time whistle that afternoon — unlike here, he stuck around on the touchline to the end of the game — would be the mood of the summer around the club.
The gambles to sign Marco Asensio and Marcus Rashford on loan in the winter transfer window, parting with many hundreds of thousands of pounds per week on their wages, brought improved performances but did not result in a second straight year of Champions League football.
Starved of the revenue Europe’s blue-ribbon competition would bring meant a long, painful summer of discontent, with players not knowing whether they were coming or going. Villa’s financial run-ins with both European football’s governing body UEFA and the Premier League were extensive and remain complex.
Stagnancy has set in. Nine of the starting XI against Sunderland were already Villa players before Emery’s arrival in October 2022. Scarce tactical and personnel evolution is part of a wider problem, though. In Sunday’s aftermath, the Spaniard stated his players were not doing the fundamentals of “the structure” he has implemented across the past three years.
Lacking the basics has aggravated matters. Villa’s frustrating transfer window and attempts to justify and mitigate performance levels feel at odds with the ‘no-excuse culture’ Emery hammered home to his players during their run to securing Champions League qualification at the end of the 2023-24 campaign.
“I told them the same as I told you,” replied Emery, when asked by The Athletic why his team’s identity has seemingly vanished. “I am not frustrated today with the result. I am frustrated and disappointed with how we played, how we are not playing and feeling comfortable with our style.
“We were lazy, sometimes defensively lazy. For example, the way we conceded we were lazy. We are not dominating.
“We have to fight the duels, and we were not fighting all duels. I watched the goal we conceded and we were lazy. We were lazy, but all the team, not the centre-backs or Cash. We are lazy.”
Emery’s condemnation of how Sunderland’s goal came about was damning yet, considering the pattern of the game’s second half, not too surprising. Sunderland roughed Villa up, building on a strategy of a defensive deep block and set plays in attack. They won four corners in the first 13 minutes after the break, with Le Bris later labelling that period as “dominant”.
Emery was critical of how Villa conceded (Martin Swinney – Sunderland AFC/Sunderland AFC via Getty Images)
If Cash’s opening goal aimed to ignite Villa’s campaign, any initiative was soon surrendered when centre-backs Konsa and Tyrone Mings failed to step up in synchronisation. They left Wilson Isidor onside to score, connecting with Granit Xhaka’s unmarked header. This prompted Emery’s “lazy” comment.
Before the season started, sources close to the first team, speaking on the condition of anonymity, admitted a heavy amount of the attacking burden during the coming campaign would fall upon the shoulders of Watkins and fellow England international Morgan Rogers. This was a consequence of a window that left an imbalance within the squad: Villa have no traditional right-winger.
When Rogers was substituted eight minutes from normal time yesterday, sections of the away support cheered.
The pair are cogs in Villa’s collective failings, where pass appreciation is low and attacking players are toiling to provide quality in their last actions.
Emery patrolled his technical area as Harvey Elliott, a deadline-day signing from champions Liverpool, played passes too quickly. Elliott’s new manager demanded that he hit shorter, safer balls during build-up.
The identity which Emery is at pains to relay in every interview had evaporated in front of his eyes.
(Top photo: Neville Williams/Aston Villa FC via Getty Images)