View: Boubacar Kamara can be Steven Gerrard’s quarterback at Aston Villa
Aston Villa announced the signing of Marseille midfielder Boubacar Kamara on Monday 23 May to a great reception from supporters.
The 22-year-old will join the club from 1 July and won’t cost the Villans a penny having left the club whose academy he graduated from on a free transfer with his contract ending next month.
It’s the first summer signing for Steven Gerrard but if the various reports are to be believed, it certainly won’t be the last in what looks to be a very busy couple of months of incomings and outgoings at Villa Park.
The French international has been one of Marseille’s key players for a couple of years now and when you really pick apart his game, you can see why Villa weren’t the only side sniffing around the goods of the Velodrome.
As the holding midfielder, Kamara firstly has to be very solid defensively and despite Marseille losing 3-0 against Lyon in this instance, he still showcased all of his ability as the complete defensive midfield player.
Here, he is able to fill in for the vacant central defender with an impressive burst of pace to beat the attacker to the ball and deny the visitors a chance of scoring which will be an incredibly useful asset to have in the fast-paced Premier League.
He doesn’t just sweep up on the cover either though as he proved later in the first half of the game.
With Lyon looking likely to spring a counter-attack, Kamara raced across to the player surging into their half with the ball ad dived in front of him to block a pass that could have set up a shot at goal, much like Douglas Luiz has done here for a couple of years now.
On the ball though is where he really shines with his pinpoint accuracy of passing and unshakeable relaxed nature making him the perfect quarterback-like player in the midfield pivot role.
This was just one of many examples of a diagonal not too dissimilar to what his new manager Gerrard used to play in his heyday.
Aston Villa have got themselves a steal here and it could also allow them to sell Luiz if a team becomes interested and make an overall profit as well as an overall improvement to the team.
In other Aston Villa news, Stiliyan Petrov is backing another Villans target to be a roaring success in the Midlands if he also makes the move on a free from La Liga.