View: Douglas Luiz has quickly become the main source of creativity for Aston Villa under Unai Emery
Although Douglas Luiz is renowned at Aston Villa for his defensive duties, he has quickly become one of Unai Emery’s main source of creativity this season.
Since the Spaniard took over from Steven Gerrard in the West Midlands, Villa’s attacking play has improved significantly, with the first-team scoring in all 11 of his opening games as manager.
Central to this change in fortunes is the role of central midfielder Luiz, who has been awarded far more freedom to explore pastures in the final third and allow his partner in crime, Boubacar Kamara, to mop up any issues that are posed on the counter-attack.
The 2022/23 season has been the Brazilian’s most successful in terms of goal contributions since moving to Villa from Manchester City in 2019, amassing three goals and five assists this term. All five of these assists have come in Emery’s first 11 games in charge, and his stark improvements on the ball have been clear for the Villa fanbase to see.
According to WhoScored, the 24-year-old makes the joint most key passes per game (1.2) in the Villa squad alongside January recruit Alex Moreno, while also taking 0.9 shots per game. Alongside this, Luiz has a higher pass completion rate than any of Kamara, Jacob Ramsey, John McGinn or Emi Buendia – highlighting why his intricate passing ability is so crucial to Villa in the final third.
Although the Brazilian started the season as a bit-part player under Gerrard, his importance to the West Midlands outfit has grown week after week. His average WhoScored rating of 6.77 is the highest of any player at Villa throughout the course of the season.
Stats such as these prove just why Arsenal wanted to sign Luiz so much in the summer transfer window, with the final £23million offer from the Gunners not enough for Villa to sanction his exit. [Daily Mail. 1 September]
Keeping the midfielder within the club’s ranks and soon afterwards striking an agreement to sign a new long-term contract is now looking to be the best business completed in the summer window. Having featured for Brazil nine times and having already picked up over 125 appearances in claret and blue, there looks to be plenty more to come from Villa’s newly-found creative spark.
In other Aston Villa news, the club want to reunite with a former player for a fee in excess of £40million in the summer.