Emi Buendia transformed at Aston Villa after meeting with Unai Emery, he’s vital to European push
Aston Villa will be aiming to keep their European hopes alive when they take on Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, 1 April.
The Villans have been in superb form since Unai Emery’s appointment in November, accumulating an impressive 26 points in the Premier League from a possible 48 on offer, including impressive wins over Manchester United and Tottenham.
Aston Villa are well and truly in the race for European football, currently sitting nine points off Newcastle United in fifth place and a run of wins in the coming weeks could well and truly propel the club to reaching those lofty ambitions.
Aston Villa will certainly have Ollie Watkins to thank in recent weeks with the former Brentford man on a tremendous run of six goals from his last eight games [WhoScored] taking his tally for the season to nine goals and five assists in 26 Premier League games.
However, while Watkins will be taking all the plaudits, one man who will prove central to the club’s faint European hopes in the coming weeks is Emi Buendia.
The Argentinian playmaker has started pretty much every game since Emery’s arrival and has formed an exciting partnership with Watkins in recent weeks, and the little maestro admitted last month [via BirminghamLive, 9 February] that Emery is getting the best out of him.
He said: “Yes, of course. As soon as he (Emery) came, we had a good meeting and I understood everything that he asked of me.
“I think his ideas are perfect for my game. I really enjoy every game. I’m confident and I’m working as hard as possible to be in my best shape to help the team.
“We feel more freedom in the attacking areas to create good chances. In almost every game, we’ve had plenty of chances to score goals. We need to be more clinical sometimes.”
Indeed, Buendia has shone considerably in the Villa team, especially with the likes of Leon Bailey struggling for attacking consistency and Philippe Coutinho still yet to stake his claim in Emery’s depleted attacking department.
The stats certainly prove as much.
Along with his five goals so far this season, Buendia currently ranks second in the Villa team for key passes (25), second for shot-creating actions (58), and third for goal-creating actions (7), as per FBRef, showcasing his tremendous exploits when trying to create chances for his teammates.
However, it will be baffling for many that he is yet to register a league assist so far this season, but he is still creating chances which proves that isn’t any fault of his own but his teammates’ lacking the clinical edge to finish off his creativity.
He ranks in the 90th percentile of attacking midfielders in Europe’s top-five leagues for through balls per 90 [FBRef], and in fact provides considerably more of those than any of his Villa teammates [WhoScored], proving just how crucial he is and will continue to be in the final third for the foreseeable future.
Goals will be of vital importance for the Villans in the coming weeks and while the fans and Emery will be heavily reliant on Watkins to score, it is Buendia who will arguably be central in creating them for others.
The stats certainly show that he is Aston Villa’s MVP when it comes to the final third innovation and invention.
In other Aston Villa news, pundit Alan Hutton has backed a potential game-changing attacking deal for a Premier League attacker.