Aston Villa ace Ezri Konsa thrives with new responsibility under Unai Emery, proven by 98.8% stat
Unai Emery has completely transformed Aston Villa since taking over in the dugout from Steven Gerrard in October.
The club have climbed all the way to sixth place in the Premier League table, with the manager quickly stamping his authority down with an attractive style of play.
And key to that style is building out from the back, with central defenders Tyrone Mings and Ezri Konsa proving to be the perfect duo to achieve it very successfully.
Villa are currently enjoying a seven-game unbeaten run in the Premier League, where they have won six of those matches and conceded just twice along the way. Moreover, five clean sheets have been kept.
Mings and Konsa have played every single minute in the run, forming a rock-solid pairing in front of the safe hands of Emiliano Martinez.
That central defensive stability has been crucial, with only Arsenal (two), Fulham (three) and Newcastle (four) having more different centre-back partnerships than Villa (five) in this season’s Premier League, as per OptaJoe.
As mentioned, Emery is eager for his defensive stars to play out from the back, a style that Konsa has taken some time to get used to, but is now very comfortable with.
“I’m adapting really well to it,” Konsa told the official Aston Villa website. “He (Emery) wants us centre-backs to have more of the ball to start the build-up play, it’s a style that he’s wanted to do from the start.
“It’s taken a while to get used to but I think you can see over the last seven games how important it is to have his centre-halves on the ball and dictating play.
“Me and Ty had a strong partnership in our first season back in the Prem and it’s something that we’ve always wanted to get back to.”
The statistics certainly point toward a reliance on defenders getting heavily involved, with Mings (1,493) and Konsa (1,480) sitting first and second respectively when it comes to the most passes for Villa players this season, according to the official Premier League website.
From those passes, Konsa boasts an 88.4% average pass success [WhoScored], made even more impressive given that he has featured in all 30 of his club’s league matches this season.
That average has been demonstrated in recent times, with the latest clash against Nottingham Forest representing the first time in six matches that Konsa’s pass success has dropped below 90%. Even then, it only stooped to 89.7% against Forest, peaking at 98.8% against Leicester.
Moreover, the centre-back trumps his partner when it comes to touches, with Konsa and Mings hitting totals of 1,796 and 1,775 respectively, figures which again place them top of the list for their club this season, as per the official Premier League website.
In other Aston Villa news, the club could soon unearth the “next“ Mohamed Salah in one youngster who recently spent time with the Villa academy at Bodymoor Heath.