Andy Gray urges Aston Villa to ‘fine’ flop Leander Dendoncker after incident v Manchester United
After a few weeks on cloud nine, Aston Villa supporters have come slightly back down to Earth over the festive period following a difficult couple of results.
While a draw with Sheffield United was disappointing but not a disaster, the manner of the defeat to Manchester United on Boxing Day left a lot to be desired as Unai Emery’s side let a 2-0 lead slip to ultimately come away empty-handed.
Few players came away from Old Trafford with their heads held high, but it was slightly surprising to see Andy Gray slam Leander Dendoncker after he felt the Belgian should have done more to prevent Alejandro Garnacho’s equaliser.
Speaking on beIN Sports (26 December) he said: “No idea, I’d fine him. I’d fine him, I’ve always said that to Keysey over the years, anybody who goes and turns their back on a ball.”
It certainly wasn’t a moment that covered the Aston Villa midfielder in glory and it perhaps showed that even at his best he cannot be relied upon to feature regularly in the midfield if Villa have genuine ambitions of finishing in the top four.
The 28-year-old went about his business well, if slightly unremarkably on Boxing Day, but he did what was required of him. 89 per cent of 35 attempted passes in the match found a teammate, including three out of four long-range efforts [Fotmob].
Out of possession Dendoncker won three of his four tackles and won 78 per cent of the duels he contested both in the air and on the ground. Only once was the Belgian dribbled past in the clash as he repeatedly broke up play effectively.
Despite all that, however, he undid a majority of his hard work with that one mistake as he turned his back on Garnacho’s effort. The Argentine’s strike only possessed an xG of 0.15 and Dendoncker’s position put him in the perfect place to deny him.
The Belgian nearly made a similarly costly mistake during Aston Villa’s clash with Arsenal earlier this season in a worrying cameo.
He only completed 20 per cent of his five attempted passes, with the worst effort of the bunch seeing a pass that would have left Moussa Diaby one-on-one with David Raya easily intercepted.
That mistake at the time left Jamie Carragher fuming on commentary, but luckily for Aston Villa, it didn’t come back to bite them. However, Emery’s side were not quite as fortunate at Old Trafford.
When compared to European midfielders in the last year, the Villa midfielder places in the 20th percentile for passes attempted per 90 minutes and the bottom five per cent of his peers for progressive passes per 90 minutes [Fbref]
He cannot be trusted to unlock defences with the ball at his feet as he doesn’t have the technical ability of a Douglas Luiz or a Boubacar Kamara.
However, he has always been relied upon to sure things up defensively well introduced. He places in the 99th percentile of midfielders in Europe’s top five leagues for shots blocked and passes blocked per 90 minutes.
It will be a huge worry to Aston Villa and Emery that Dendoncker has seemingly forgotten to do the one thing that he has excelled at this season. It cost them at Old Trafford and it feels unlikely that the Villa boss will be keen to trust the Belgian again.
In other Aston Villa news, Lucas Digne would have left Emery sweating after it was revealed he was undergoing a scan on a new injury