With Unai Emery having managed 25 Premier League games with Aston Villa, there is now a decent sample size to assess the squad and identify which players need to be upgraded.
It’s not to say the following players can’t be valuable pieces of the squad, but if Villa are to continue competing for European football in seasons to come, there are four players who ideally won’t start every week.
For this article, WhoScored’s player ratings system will be used, which according to their website, are: “The most accurate, respected and well-known performance indicators in the world of football”.
The ratings are used by “media giants, bookmakers and football clubs”.
Ezri Konsa
This is a controversial statement, but Konsa might be Villa’s most overrated player.
That’s not to say he’s bad, far from it, but a lot of Villa fans are convinced he’s a top defender and should be in the England squad, and that’s just not the case.
Konsa’s a solid, average Premier League centre-back, which every team would like to have in their squad, but he isn’t a difference maker.
Of the players who started at least 10 games under Emery, Konsa had the second-worst WhoScored rating at just 6.64 out of 10. Over the course of a full season, Konsa’s rating would’ve ranked him as the 28th best Premier League centre-back out of the 39 who played at least half of their team’s games.
This feels harsh, and passive centre-backs like Konsa can be victims of a lack of counting stats, which can lower their rating while their more intangible work goes unnoticed (he ranked in the 23rd percentile for tackles, the 7th for interceptions, and the 37th for blocks, compared to centre-backs in the ‘Big 5’ leagues in the last year).
However, the difference between Konsa and Tyrone Mings is stark.
Mings had a 6.86 WhoScored rating since Emery’s arrival, which would rank him as the league’s 11th best centre-back over a complete campaign. He’s the player who made Villa’s centre-back pairing work.
On the other hand, Konsa has never had a WhoScored rating above 6.75 for a season in his Premier League career.
If he’s still the same player post-injury, Diego Carlos has a big opportunity to replace Konsa in the starting 11, and Villa have also been linked with Villarreal’s Pau Torres, and he’d provide a significant improvement on Konsa in possession, who ranks in just the 4th percentile for progressive passes.
Konsa can still be a great option off the bench and should get his share of games this season, but there’s plenty of evidence there are better centre-back options out there.
Leon Bailey
Bailey’s up and down form and injury issues have frustrated Villa fans since his arrival. His form improved after Emery took the helm, achieving a 6.70 WhoScored rating in that period.
The average Premier League player scored a 6.64 last season. This isn’t a perfect number to use as some positions (specifically forwards) generally score higher than others, but this number basically indicates what Bailey is, a just above average Premier League player.
There is a natural variance in performance that comes with wingers because their game is based around trying things which are harder to do, such as dribbling past defenders one on one, crossing and scoring. Consistently successful wingers are rare and cost a lot of money.
Bailey probably gets more criticism than he deserves, but there’s no doubting his inconsistency. Four goals and four assists last season is… fine, but Villa could certainly stand to get better in the winger/second striker role the Jamaican has bounced between.
Emi Buendía
Buendia is another player once he linked up with Emery, mainly because he was allowed to play. His WhoScored rating was pretty good at 6.88 under the new manager, and he showed an ability to play in different roles as a wide midfielder or a second striker.
He more than played his part in Villa’s charge to the Europa Conference League, but there were also games Buendia would be anonymous and like Bailey, his output leaves a bit to be desired, with five goals and two assists in 2022/23.
If Buendia starts the majority of the games next season, no-one will be complaining, but the attacking players the club have been linked with; the Marco Asensio’s (before he went to PSG) and Ferran Torres’ of the world, just have an extra level of quality and this may be something Villa need.
Ashley Young
This one is cheating a bit since he’s already left the club, but Emery’s system requires a conservative right back who tucks in and plays as a centre-back while the left-back bombs forward, and Villa need one who’s better than Young was last year.
They would serve as an alternative to the buccaneering Matty Cash, who in fairness was more than solid in the more withdrawn right-back role, scoring a WhoScored rating of 6.90 in a smaller sample size of 10 starts, but it’s not really his style.
For anyone wondering why Villa didn’t renew Young’s contract for another year, he was Villa’s worst player under Emery according to WhoScored, with just a 6.56 rating. He survived at right-back remarkably well for his age, but he didn’t thrive.
The Villa Ramble 
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