Unai Emery in danger of damaging Aston Villa defeat v West Ham United if he starts Diego Carlos, he’s yet to convince
Aston Villa boss Unai Emery could make critical changes when the Villans take on West Ham United in the Premier League on Sunday and one of those should be to wield the axe on Diego Carlos.
Just two points separate fifth-place Villa and seventh-place West Ham, so three points at Villa Park for either team will be a huge boost to both their ambitious European aspirations in the Premier League.
The Villans settled for a share of the spoils in their last league clash v Wolves on 8 October but it was a rather dour performance from Emery’s men after some costly selection decisions for the game.
Unai Emery set his side out in a 3-4-2-1, as he has done in three of their five games on the road in the Premier League this season, deploying Cash and Digne as wing-backs and giving them licence to get into the final third.
However, it proved the wrong one as Villa struggled to match the attacking heights they’ve set in previous games, a run which bore 18 goals from their seven Premier League games [SofaScore] before the derby.
Had Emery gone for his usual 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 selection, Villa may well have been looking at another crucial victory and one of those costly changes he made was to bring in Diego Carlos alongside Ezri Konsa and Torres to provide more solidity but the stats from the game show the Brazilian failed to deliver what Emery asked of him, despite the result.
As per SofaScore, the former Sevilla man failed to win a single tackle, was dribbled past twice, and lost 100% of both his ground and aerial duels, completing just two of his six long balls in a pretty dire display.
While Wolves’ goal may not have come from a direct error, the Brazilian still failed to convince Emery that he is worthy of usurping Konsa or Torres in his tried and it is evidently clear that the Spaniard should return to his trusted defensive line-up when he lines up his team v West Ham United on Sunday (22 October).
It seems as if the veteran Brazilian Carlos has yet to convince Emery that he should be a regular Aston Villa leader of the back-line in Tyrone Mings’ absence.
In other Aston Villa news, an Aston Villa Women defender has been handed a club honour following the exit of one player.