Leander Dendoncker almost cost Aston Villa win v Arsenal as MOTD show footage
Leander Dendoncker hasn’t had the happiest of spells at Aston Villa.
The 28-year-old has barely kicked a ball in the Premier League this season and has played just 31 times for the club in all competitions since his arrival from Wolves last year.
It’s no shock to see that Dendoncker has been linked with a move away from Villa Park with that in mind. Belgian journalist Sacha Tavolieri reported on 16 November that the midfielder is no longer in Unai Emery’s plans at Villa Park and he wants to leave the West Midlands club.
But Emery did give Dendoncker more of a chance than he has done all season in the Premier League on Saturday (10 December) when the Villans welcomed Arsenal to the Second City.
Dendoncker played 24 minutes of the game after replacing Boubacar Kamara. It was not only his longest Premier League appearance of the campaign but it was also longer than all four of his other appearances combined.
But there may not be many more lengthy outings for the Belgian in the league because he almost cost Villa the win against Arsenal.
In the second half, as the Gunners pressed for an equaliser and Villa aimed to hold onto their one-goal advantage, Dendoncker seemed to switch off and put his teammates in a position where they were outnumbered by Mikel Arteta’s attackers.
Footage on Match of the Day (9 December) highlights Gabriel Jesus with two other Arsenal players standing around Diego Carlos and Matty Cash.
Dendoncker isn’t doing anything helpful with no Arsenal player anywhere near him.
The ex-Wolves man is clearly just ball-watching, unaware of the danger that’s about to unfold behind him.
Moussa Diaby seems to have the middle covered, John McGinn seems to have the wing covered and where the ball is, at the top of the picture, Villa also have three-v-three.
You could point at Pau Torres in the image below and ask what he’s doing. But he’s holding the defensive line. If he moves, he creates a massive gaping hole that can be exploited.
Dendoncker simply has to drop back – there’s no other option.
Instead of dropping back, Dendoncker gets sucked into where the ball is despite Douglas Luiz already in control of the situation.
It’s a really poor attempt at closing down by the Belgian too and you can then see the issue that’s emerged behind him in the defence.
Cash and Carlos are both marking their men while Torres is caught in no man’s land as the space he had to guard no longer needs guarding. However, at least you can understand why he was in that position to start with, whereas with Dendoncker, he just had to drop back and slot in to mark Jesus.
The ball ends up finding its way to the ex-Manchester City striker, who MOTD highlighted in the image below and thankfully – much to the relief of Dendoncker – the Brazilian messes up the opportunity by taking a bad touch.
But this is why Dendoncker isn’t playing that often, it’s because he isn’t good enough.
Tavolieri reported that the midfielder wants to join another Premier League club if he was to leave Aston Villa in the summer and while it’s great to hear that kind of ambition from him, there aren’t many clubs he’s well suited for unless he goes to someone in the bottom five or six.
Wolves allowed him to join Villa because he wasn’t good enough for them and now it’s clear he’s nowhere near good for the Champions League-chasing Villans.
In other Aston Villa news, it is “done” for this central midfielder to quit Villa Park with a permanent transfer deal already agreed.