Douglas Luiz earns deserved place in Garth Crooks’ team of the week with 100% Aston Villa display
While half of the Premier League were seemingly out spending hundreds of millions of pounds on new midfielders this summer, Aston Villa are lucky enough to have one of the best already in their ranks.
Douglas Luiz was at his conductive best in the middle of the park during Aston Villa’s 3-1 win over Crystal Palace, earning a place in Garth Crooks’ BBC Team of the Week and received the highest rating of any player at Villa Park with an 8.9 [Fotmob].
A lot of credit will be given to the Brazilian for the manner in which he put Unai Emery’s side ahead from the penalty spot but his performance contained so much more that demonstrated just what sort of talent Aston Villa have on their hands.
Discussing his inclusion in the team of the week, Crooks wrote: “Douglas Luiz makes my team not just because he converts the penalty so emphatically but also as a result of his performance, which was thoroughly professional throughout. His calm, steady and consistent approach has helped to transform Villa since the arrival of Unai Emery.”
The 25-year-old completed 86 per cent of his 64 attempted passes, with nine of them being into the final third of the pitch, and all of his attempted long balls were 100% accurate all while he created a chance from the base of midfield for Villa.
Defensively, Luiz won four tackles in the game while also making an incredible 16 ball recoveries and winning 10 ground duels as he went about his business busily to stop the likes of Eberechi Eze and Will Hughes from getting a hold on the game.
While players are expected to score penalties, to do it under pressure in the closing stages of a match after the referee had taken five minutes to decide whether or not to award the spot-kick takes an incredible amount of composure.
The Brazilian has a knack for slowing the game down with his composure and technique allowing Villa to play the game at their own pace. Against Palace, he was fouled three times and similarly, at Liverpool, he won two free-kicks allowing Emery’s side to settle and compose themselves once more.
While a 83.2 pass completion rate in the last year puts him in the bottom 55 per cent of Europe’s midfielders according to Fbref, the fact that he has boosted that to 89 per cent so far this season shows how he and Villa have both improved in the early stages of the campaign.
Should Luiz keep up this impressive form and keep scoring important goals, Villa are going to have a hard job keeping hold of their midfielder in the coming windows. But given the state of the market for Premier League holding midfielders they could be in line to earn a pretty penny.
In other Aston Villa news, Match of the Day pundits were all in agreement that Villa were lucky to get a penalty against Palace