George Overhill

Mon 27 March 2023 10:10, UK

Aston Villa were forced to recover from a highly disappointing start to the season under Steven Gerrard after lofty pre-season expectations were not met, with Unai Emery now steering the club safely into mid-table.

A lack of invention, very little pace, and a marquee signing who was a shadow of his best in Philippe Coutinho all contributed to the former Rangers boss being sacked, so it appears that the Villans are looking to address some of those issues with a free transfer pursuit of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain this summer.

The Liverpool midfielder is a target at Villa Park, as he is at Newcastle and Brighton, according to the Daily Mail on Sunday (26 March), as there have been no talks over an Anfield extension so rival clubs are “keen on snapping him up”.

The 29-year-old is seen as “almost certainly” leaving Jurgen Klopp’s side and there is also interest from Serie A in the former Arsenal man.

Few would argue that on his day the England international is a quality Premier League midfielder, but a large part of why he is surplus to requirements on Merseyside is the infrequency with which he has been able to show it.

He has made just 12 largely-substitute appearances this season across all competitions, as the injury-hit nature of his Liverpool career made itself plain again, having long since lost him a regular starting position.

You have to go back to the title-winning 2019/20 season for the last time he made more than 30 league appearances in a campaign, something which has he only done twice in six years at Anfield.

Nominally one of a central midfield in a 4-3-3 under Klopp the one-time Southampton man would most likely slot into one of the three attacking midfield positions in the 4-2-3-1 that Emery often prefers.

In terms of availability in the Premier League the current comparable Aston Villa players far outstrip Oxlade-Chamberlain, with his 315 minutes paling in comparison to Emi Buendia’s 1,641 and Jacob Ramsey’s 1,686, and even the out-of-favour Coutinho’s 783 – as shown by a comparison on WhoScored.

It’s a similar picture the season before, where his 787 minutes are more than tripled by Ramsey on 2,477, and even almost doubled by Coutinho on 1,339 who only arrived in the January window.

Crucially, in the time that the former Liverpool teammate has flattered to deceive at Villa Park, the current Anfield man has not outperformed any of the Lions trio in goals, assists, shots-per-game or pass success percentage either.

His previous full campaign in 2019/20 compares fairly evenly with Buedia and Ramsey’s 2022/23 seasons, with a combined five goals and assists, but a slightly lower overall rating of 6.63, so on the face of it he would be an asset if regularly fit but not necessarily an improvement on what is already at the club.

And given he is on £120,000-a-week at Liverpool according to FBRef, he’s not exactly cheap to bring in just to hope he will remain available.

While Oxlade-Chamberlain has been a great player in his career it is tempting to argue that even with the bonus of not having to pay a fee he wouldn’t be the right option for this Villa side, especially as his highest combined Premier League goals and assists is 10 way back in 2017/18, while playing in one of the top attacking sides in world football under Klopp.

In that sense, his overall output isn’t hugely superior to John McGinn, who is not known for his dynamism, and while the Scot often racks up far more minutes over a season he also frequently sits towards the base of the midfield.

These days it is hard not to reach the conclusion that depending on the level of his fitness and availability the 35-cap international is at least comparable to the current midfield options and would be unlikely to shift any from the starting XI, which given his injury record may be wishful thinking anyway.

The best comparison looks to be with Ramsey, and in the five years since the Aston Villa youngster became a senior professional, he has outperformed Oxlade-Chamberlain in terms of pure output but falls slightly behind in per-90 output, because of the older man’s lack of availability.

Using Opta stats from FBRef shows that Ramsey has a better number of goals (12 to eight), expected goals [xG] (6.5 to 6.3), expected assisted goals [xAG] (4.4 to 3.4) and both progressive carries (157 to 98) and progressive passes (230 to 194), but falls 0.08 and 0.03 behind when it comes to per 90 minutes xG (0.12 to 0.2) and xAG (0.08 to 0.11).

While Oxlade-Chamberlain may sign for another top-flight club and revive his career completely, and he still has time at 29, these stats appear to show that even when fit his production can mostly be provided by 21-year-old Ramsey, but that he simply isn’t available enough, with the youngster playing 18 more games and making 29 more starts in that period despite being 16 five years ago and far from a regular feature himself.

If Villa want to improve the squad then they are surely better off putting the space on the wage bill towards a player with more recent success, as they already have one former Liverpool player on the books struggling to recapture past glories.

In other Aston Villa news, Alan Hutton has backed a potential game-changing attacking deal for a Premier League attacker.