View: Aston Villa duo Douglas Luiz and Boubacar Kamara are surely cemented as first-choice midfield
Unai Emery’s Aston Villa midfield is now surely locked off for the Boxing Day clash against Liverpool, with Douglas Luiz and Boubacar Kamara oozing class during the mid-season break.
As most Premier League club’s lost marquee players to the World Cup, Steven Gerrard’s dire stint at the club did have one inadvertent positive, as just four Villa players were selected to take part in Qatar.
This meant Emery could get to grips with the core contingent of his squad at Bodymoor Heath during the six-week hiatus, and nobody benefitted more than Villa’s new-look midfield partnership.
Luiz and Kamara have now started in the Spaniard’s last three friendlies – two in Dubai and one at Villa Park – and have forged a blossoming romance ever since.
The Brazilian and Frenchman seem to tix every box that Emery needs.
The flair and passing quality provided by Luiz, the tactical awareness and defensive attributes of Kamara and the Duracell-like engines both posses result in the perfect partnership.
Seemingly they already have a telepathic understanding of each other’s needs on the pitch, with the pair both comfortable picking the ball off the back four, playing it between themselves, before pinging a ball into the likes of Leon Bailey and Ollie Watkins down the channels.
French international Kamara, who was unfortunate to miss out on Didier Deschamps’ World Cup squad, is the perfect foil to Luiz and has the ability to shield a Villa back-four, who are renowned for their soft underbelly.
Luiz though, in particular, has shone in a Claret and Blue shirt so far this season, and although he has stolen the headlines with his audacious corner-taking ability, it is the way he makes things tick with such ease which is even more impressive.
The likes of Leander Dendoncker, Morgan Sanson and Marvelous Nakamba now face an uphill struggle to make inroads into this central midfield partnership and will likely be warming the bench over the festive period and the new year.
Luiz and Kamara are surely now cemented as the bedrock of Emery’s foundations at Villa Park, and you could certainly have worse players taking the club into its new era.
In other Aston Villa news, Finn Azaz is set for a fresh contract offer after a pair of stunning loan spells in the football league.