I fully admit, I haven't seen much of him. My opinion stems from my mate, who is a Barca fan who has watched him play for Betis a lot these past two seasons.
I had a long chat with him the day we were first linked, and the summary was essentially as you've outlined - aggressive player, strong guy, wins absolute tons of interceptions and tackles. Not the most rapid guy in the world - he's not quite at the level Walker was - but he's comfortably fast enough to keep pace with attackers, and faster than (for example) Trippier was. Has a decent cross on him, but his strength at Betis in an offensive sense was actually passing and cutbacks from the line, which makes sense given that they're a fairly short team.
He also said Emerson's a humble guy who's positive and works incredibly hard, on and off the field. Overall, he thinks the Prem is a perfect landing ground for the guy - this league's more about pace, power and commitment than intricate passing and tactical periodisation like in Spain, and he feels that suits Emerson's game down to the ground.
(Conversely, it's also why Trippier's done well in Spain, apparently - there are fewer physical matchups and more time's given to players to pick their passes, which is why Trippier's passing ability from deep really came to shine in his opinion.
)
If he has weaknesses, it's that he dives in a lot, is a bit rash and is sometimes caught out in terms of positioning, but that's true of all young full-backs - hardly a deal breaker, unless they never grow out of it like Aurier.
And like you, I like Nuno's squad building so far. The thing is, our best periods under Poch came when we were the most dominant physical side in the league - in that last season at the Lane, you could visibly see us tower over our opponents, and we usually physically overpowered them in minutes with our high-pressing game, winning every duel and establishing dominance early. Led to some ludicrous scorelines that year.
That whole team was young, fit, fast and powerful -I've always wanted us to get back to that approach. It's simple, but imo, effective. Build a young, hungry, energetic team with a physical presence, who can also play a bit.
With our current squad, we're trending in that direction, and even physically slighter guys like Gil and Lo Celso seem (from early viewing) to be the types who relish going into challenges and fighting to get on the ball. So, good signs imo.
