Calum Chambers may now have played last game for Aston Villa as Unai Emery shares January transfer exit update
Aston Villa outcast Calum Chambers has surely played his last game at the club with Unai Emery confirming the defender can leave the club this month.
The Spaniard shared in his pre-match conference (12 January) ahead of Sunday’s clash against Everton at Goodison Park that both Chambers and Bertrand Traore are free to find new clubs this month.
The 28-year-old defender is yet to make a single Premier League appearance this season, being left as an unused substitute in 13 of Villa’s 20 Premier League matches and it seems he has made his last appearance at the club after what Emery said.
The Spaniard, speaking on Friday (12 January), shared: “
“We’re going to face three competitions until the end of the season that are very difficult so we ned the players to be ready. We have the players here. Some players can leave.
“Calum Chambers and Bertrand Traore can leave, and in that case, we can think about adding some players, but not at the moment. I want to support the players we have now.”
The former Arsenal and Fulham defender has made just two starts this season [Transfermarkt], both coming in Europe and one of those appearances was another in which he struggled, in the 3-2 defeat to Legia Warsaw.
Since then, Chambers has been nowhere to be seen again in Emery’s starting line-up, capping off an incredibly difficult year at Villa Park.
In his 17 games at Villa Park last season, Chambers only made just two starts and was a regular benchwarmer after Emery was appointed back in November.
In those games, Chambers didn’t contribute to any clean sheets which is made all the more telling given Ezri Konsa and Tyrone Mings, when paired together, during Emery’s tenure helped themselves to nine clean sheets [WhoScored].
The worrying numbers don’t stop there too.
The 28-year-old only averaged 0.5 tackles per game, 0.6 tackles, won just 47% of his ground duels and a disastrous 33% of his aerial duels, as per SofaScore which made him an unreliable commodity in the Aston Villa defence.
Chambers’ most recent appearance came against Zrijinski Mostar (14 December) 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].
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.
Even in the event of an injury crisis, the Spaniard is more likely to call upon Clement Lenglet who has shone in the Europa Conference League this season.
It seems as though Emery and the club as a whole have already made their feelings known towards Chambers and his appearance against Zrinjski now looks set to be his last.
In other Aston Villa news, Emery has handed one “highly-rated” youth star the perfect chance to develop with a new loan switch