AdminAston Villa have been dealt an unexpected setback after highly-rated set-piece coach Austin MacPhee agreed to leave the club for Chelsea.
The move, which caught many supporters by surprise, sees one of Villa’s most respected backroom staff join a direct Premier League rival.
The news broke on Friday evening, prompting an immediate reaction from BirminghamLive’s Aston Villa reporter John Townley, who described the departure as a significant loss for Unai Emery’s coaching staff.
“It is a blow for Villa to lose Austin MacPhee. There’s no two ways about it. Just from the outset, this is a bad thing for Villa.
Hopefully, they can cope without him, but they’re going to have to do work to do that. They’re not keeping one of their best coaches.
“Unai Emery has lost an assistant and has lost MacPhee, and to make matters worse, him heading to Chelsea, as I understand it, yeah, that rubs salt in the wound because Chelsea are a direct rival to Villa.
“I don’t know if there’ll be any compensation. I don’t know how long MacPhee’s contract was worth.
We’ll see about that. Nobody really sees this as good news. It’s clearly not that. I suspect it’s because it’s Chelsea. If it was Emery leaving, fair enough, but not a set- piece coach.
“Obviously, the worst thing that could happen to Aston Villa Football Club is Emery leaves, that’s the big one. Anything else is work to be done, but I trust in the system to replace these people.
“It is just a set piece coach I agree, but we scored a lot of goals from set pieces last year, I think it was joint most across Europe with Arsenal, maybe, something like 28 29 goals, I think off the top of my head, I’m going to have a look at that now.
“It’s a source of output for Villa that doesn’t necessarily mean we were going to do that this upcoming season anyway, because of so much personnel changes to the team.
“MacPhee has been here across different coaches now, so he’s clearly well-liked and well-trusted and has been part of the furniture at Bodymoor, so for him now not to be there is a difference, I suppose.
“What I would say is that I think it’ll be very hard to replace Austin’s creativity; he’s certainly one of the best in the business.
Just because change is happening doesn’t mean that all of a sudden, now this is the start of the end.”
MacPhee earned a strong reputation during his time at Villa, playing a key role in the club’s impressive set-piece record under Emery.
While replacing his expertise will not be straightforward, Villa will now look to reshape their coaching staff ahead of the new campaign and ensure the disruption has little impact on their ambitions.
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