Dan Carter

Sat 9 December 2023 20:30, UK

It may still only be the first week of December, but Christmas appears to have come early for Aston Villa supporters as they moved clear of Manchester City with a 1-0 win over Arsenal.

Unai Emery’s side were superb on Saturday evening (9 December) and moved to third in the Premier League thanks to John McGinn’s early strike and appear to be serious competitors for not only the Champions League places but also the Premier League title.

While the result may have come as a surprise to some fans, perhaps the bigger shock of the clash was the introduction of Leander Dendoncker in the 66th minute. Before Saturday’s win, the Belgian international hadn’t played more than four minutes of a Premier League match this season.

His cameo from the bench may have shown exactly why that was the case as well as the 28-year-old only managed to complete one of his five attempted passes in the game [Fotmob].

Perhaps the most disappointing pass of the game came in the 72nd minute as Dendoncker looked to play Moussa Diaby in behind the Arsenal backline only to instead pick out Gabriel, much to Jamie Carragher’s frustration who admitted: “If he had have got it right he was in” [Sky Sports, 19:00].

That wastefulness spanned over a long-range as well with the 28-year-old failing to complete a single one of his three attempted long balls and all in all losing possession four times despite only having 10 touches of the ball.

Defensively, it could be argued that Dendoncker did his job, winning three of his four duels in the match, including 100 per cent of his battles in the air and he even managed to win a tackle which Boubacar Kamara was unable to do in his 66 minutes of action.

But realistically it doesn’t matter how many times the Belgian won the ball if he was then just giving it straight back to the opposition repeatedly. No matter the game situation, it is unacceptable that a Premier League midfielder only mangled to find a teammate with 20 per cent of his passes in a match.

This was an issue Dendoncker faced last season as well. When compared to other midfielders in the Premier League last season, he placed in the 97th percentile for interceptions made per 90 minutes, but the 25th percentile for passes attempted per game [Fbref].

The 28-year-old is more than capable of winning the ball but is unable to do anything particularly effective with it. Throughout last season he fell in the bottom six per cent and the bottom one per cent of his positional peers for progressive passes and progressive carries per game.

Realistically his dismal display against Arsenal should spell the end for Dendoncker at Aston Villa, but after Douglas Luiz picked up his fifth yellow card of the campaign against Mikel Arteta’s side, Emery may well have to start the Belgian against Brentford next Sunday (17 December).

If he is picked in the starting XI, he has to be better on the ball to try and breathe new life into his career at Villa Park.

In other Aston Villa news, Dean Smith has been blown away by Ezri Konsa’s development labelling him a “Rolls-Royce” of a defender