Calum Chambers is finished at Aston Villa, Unai Emery doesn’t need him
Things couldn’t be going much better for Aston Villa under the management of Unai Emery as the Spanaird’s side continue to go from strength to strength in the Premier League and Europe.
Villa have the opportunity to go top of the Premier League, even if only for a day, on Friday 22 December when they face Sheffield United at Villa Park, knowing a win will see them leapfrog both Arsenal and Liverpool.
While the likes of Ollie Watkins, John McGinn and Douglas Luiz are nailed-on starters against Chris Wilder’s Blades, one man who almost certainly won’t be included in Emery’s starting XI is Calum Chambers, with the Englishman falling well down the pecking order this season.
The 28-year-old is yet to make a single Premier League appearance this season, being left as an unused substitute in 13 of Villa’s 17 Premier League matches this season and he hasn’t started a match for Emery’s side since the Europa Conference League group opener in September [Transfermarkt].
Although we are only in December, Aston Villa have already played 26 matches this season across all competitions. That equates to roughly 2,340 minutes of football, of which Chambers has played a total of 178 minutes.
The bulk of those minutes came in a full 90 minutes in the dead-rubber Conference League qualifier with Hibernian. That means that across the opening few months of the season, Chambers has played in only 7.6 per cent of Villa’s minutes.
Chambers’ most recent appearance came against Zrijinski Mostar in a 21-minute cameo from the bench. The Aston Villa defender had eight touches of the ball and completed five of his six passes, failing to find a teammate with his only long-range effort in the contest [Fotmob].
His last start against Legia Warsaw saw him hooked after 67 minutes as although he won 100 per cent of his duels both on the ground and in the air, he completed zero per cent of his attempted crosses and was only accurate with 33 per cent of his long passes.
This lack of cutting edge in possession is really what is preventing Chambers from consistently featuring for Emery’s side. In his last regular season of Premier League football in the 2021/22 campaign, the 28-year-old placed in the 46th percentile of defenders for passes completed per game [Fbref].
Ezri Konsa who has often been deployed in Chambers’ preferred position this season instead places in the 58th percentile for passes completed per 90 minutes and boats a much higher completion percentage, finding teammates with 92.1 per cent of his efforts compared to Chambers’ 82.1 per cent.
As previously mentioned, Chambers was unable to establish himself as a regular during the Conference League group stages and with the competition now entering its knockout stages, Emery is unlikely to rotate his Aston Villa side just for the sake of it.
The Englishman will only be used as a last resort in league action so it is hard to see where and when he’ll be able to add to his 178 minutes of football if he remains at Villa Park beyond the January transfer window.
Even in the event of an injury crisis, Emery is more likely to call upon Clement Lenglet who has shone in the Europa Conference League this season.
The Frenchman has a better pass completion rate than 90 per cent of Conference League defenders and is one of the most progressive centre-backs in Europe, averaging 5.2 progressive passes per 90 minutes, are than 80 per cent of his positional peers [Fbref].
With the January window now just days away, it feels as though Chambers is finished at Aston Villa.
In other Aston Villa news, Moussa Diaby should be axed by Emery after failing to live up to his price tag against Brentford