Monday Night Club: Emery's Villa revolution, Africa's new superpower and United & Liverpool rivals for Semenyo?
Football Daily
BBC
4.3 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 22 December 2025
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How has Unai Emery masterminded Aston Villa's rise? Will United and Liverpool compete for Semenyo? And who are Africa's new superpower, how is Mo Salah viewed in his home continent and why has a major change been made to the African Cup of Nations?
Chris Sutton, Rory Smith and Pat Nevin join Mark Chapman to discuss and debate the big questions of the week on the Monday Night Club.
Guillem Balague, author of 'The Rise of the Villans: Inside Unai Emery's Aston Villa Revolution', joins the panel to provide insight into Emery's excellent work at Villa Park.
The group then consider the other side of Sunday's 2-1 victory over Manchester United, who have lost talismanic captain Bruno Fernandes to injury. How can they replace him, and might it force the Reds into a transfer battle with bitter rivals Liverpool? Arne Slot's title holders are waiting for further news on Alexander Isak, with reports suggesting their record-breaking signing has suffered a leg break.
African football journalist Maher Mezahi joins us from AFCON to explain a major change to the competition, how Morocco and Senegal are competing to be the continental superpower and how Mo Salah is viewed by those in his home nation and continent after controversy at Liverpool.
Plus, what is Pep Guardiola's Christmas diet for his Man City players, and how does it compare to Chris and Pat's from back in the day?
Timecodes: 00:12 Villa's 10-match winning streak, with Guillem Balague (Euro Leagues) explaining how Emery turned this season around 23:10 Do United and Liverpool really need to buy to replace Bruno Fernandes and Alexander Isak? 32:50 Hearts are top of the Scottish Premiership at Christmas, so what will they do in January? 39:20 AFCON — Are Morocco the new African superpower? 45:00 AFCON — How much pressure is on Salah to succeed with Egypt, and how has the controversy with Arne Slot been viewed in Africa? 47:40 AFCON — Have FIFA driven changes to the tournament schedule, from every 2 years to every 4 years? 50:30 Pep Guardiola's 'hidden' Christmas message to Man City's players
Commentaries coming up this week: Tuesday 23rd — Arsenal v Crystal Palace — 20:00 — 5 Live Saturday 27th — Arsenal v Brighton — 15:00 — 5 Live Saturday 27th — Liverpool v Wolves — 15:00 — Sports Extra Saturday 27th — Chelsea v Aston Villa — 17:30 — 5 Live
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | My Christmas Mix is pure 90s festive nostalgia. |
| 0:11.1 | You know, the Christmas songs you listen to on repeat. |
| 0:14.0 | Ho! |
| 0:14.3 | Ho! Ho! No, no, no. |
| 0:17.5 | I'm all about the big hitting Christmas anthems. |
| 0:20.4 | Come on, guys. What about those tunes that really slay? |
| 0:23.7 | It's Christmas kitchen disco season, surely. |
| 0:26.4 | Give me hip-hop Christmas bangers every day. |
| 0:28.6 | Those Christmas tracks that are straight out of Lapland. |
| 0:30.9 | Get all kinds of Christmassy. |
| 0:32.6 | Just search Christmas music on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.5 | This is the Monday Night Club with Mark Chapman on the Football Daily podcast. |
| 0:42.8 | Welcome to the Monday Night Club, Pat Nevin, Rory Smith and Chris Sutton, all here with us. |
| 0:47.6 | Now regular listeners will know our regular producer is a Villa fan and he tries to avoid putting Villa in the show for fear of |
| 0:55.7 | cursing whatever good run they're on but he can't avoid it tonight and he has an Astavilla |
| 0:59.8 | Christmas jumper on so we're going to start with Villa and where they are at who have beaten |
| 1:05.3 | Manchester United for the second time at home in the league in 30 years they They have a 10-match winning streak in all |
| 1:12.5 | competitions, which is their longest winning run as a top flight club for 111 years. |
| 1:19.4 | So, I go bring Ian Balagay in a member of Euroleaks, Five Life Sport, regular, because he's |
| 1:25.2 | recently written a book on Emery at Villa. |
| 1:28.3 | So this is the rise of the villains inside Una Emery's Aster Villa Revolution. |
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