Francis Coquelin helped Unai Emery to his second win in four games as Villarreal manager, albeit in another friendly match, ahead of the new La Liga season getting underway.

Unai Emery was appointed as manager of Villarreal on a three-year-deal on 23 July 2020 after being sacked by Arsenal on 29 November 2019.

One of his first acts as manager of the Spanish club was to bring in Francis Coquelin for €6.5m from Valencia who paid Arsenal €14m for him six moths before Emery arrived at Arsenal.

Emery was announced when the 19/20 season finished (and Santi Cazorla announced he was off) and, as such, has only had pre-season to put out a team, so far.

He won his first game against FC Cartagena 3-1 before losing the next two – 3-2 against Tenerife and 2-1 against both his and Coquelin’s former side, Valencia.

In his latest match, however, that was played on 2 September, Emery registered another win and a rare cleansheet.

The 2-0 win over Real Sociedad came about thanks sweet strike from the edge of the box from Coquelin in the second minute and a second from Paco Alcacer from the spot after 29 minutes.

That goal for Le Coq won’t count in any official stats at the end of his career but had it been in an official game it would have been more than he scored at Arsenal and the same as he scored at each of Valencia, FC Lorient, and SC Frieburg.

Emery, meanwhile, won two of his first four Arsenal pre-season games with an 8-0 over the traditional pre-season opener against Boreham Wood and a 5-1 win over PSG.

The other two games saw him draw 1-1 with both Atletico Madrid and Chelsea with all three of those games taking place in the International Champions Make More Money Cup.