Unai Emery handed Diego Carlos problem at Aston Villa after ‘inexcusable’ pre-season incident
Aston Villa are well and truly up and running in pre-season and while the games are coming thick and fast, the results have been a bit more mixed.
Unai Emery’s side lost their second game in a row during their pre-season tour of America as they were beaten 2-0 by RB Leipzig having conceded two goals in the first half.
Only a minute after the second strike from Lois Openda, Deigo Carlos managed to pick up his second yellow card and was therefore sent off, leaving Emery’s side with little hope of getting back into the game.
Writing on X (1 August), Birmingham Live journalist John Towley said: “Inexcusable for Diego Carlos to be booked twice after altercations with the same player about 15 minutes apart in a pre-season friendly.”
The Brazilian international has been linked with a move away from Villa Park this summer, with reports suggesting the Villans were willing to listen to offers [The Telegraph, 20 May] and Emery’s concerns may have just been justified.
Will Diego Carlos exit Aston Villa amid summer transfer speculation?
While Carlos’ display in the pre-season clash with Leipzig was poor, it isn’t the first time he has flattered to deceive in recent memory as he was miles off of the pace in Villa’s final league match against Crystal Palace.
The 31-year-old was part of a backline that conceded five goals at Selhurst Park and over the course of the game he failed to complete a single tackle or even enter a duel, according to Fotmob.
The Brazilian did make three ball recoveries and two blocks, but his work with the ball at his feet was just as poor as he struggled to maintain possession and help drive Villa up the pitch.
In the 90 minutes, Carlos completed 90 per cent of all his attempted passes, but when looking for a teammate over a long distance, he was only accurate with a miserable 43 per cent of his efforts.
That wasn’t a one-off either as in the penultimate game of the campaign against Liverpool, the Aston Villa man won zero per cent of his six ground duels in the contest and only one of his three aerial battles.
On top of that, he committed four fouls and missed arguably the easiest chance to score that any player had in the entire season as he missed the target with a left-footed effort that had an xG of 0.99.
Carlos just doesn’t seem to have that natural defensive instinct that is required to fit into Emery’s system and that could be an issue heading into the new Premier League campaign.
The 31-year-old sits in the 35th percentile of the division’s centre-backs for tackles won per 90 minutes of action, with an average of only 0.79 every game, according to Fbref.
Emery’s side does tend to dominate the ball so that can almost be excused, but when the centre-back is faced with a dribbler, he only comes away with possession 61.9 per cent of the time. A figure bettered by 49 per cent of his peers.
He also tends to make more errors than the average defender and throughout last season, he placed in the eighth percentile for mistakes per game, meaning 92 per cent of defenders are more reliable than him.
It was clear that Emery was willing to let Carlos leave this summer and bolster his defensive ranks with a new addition and the Brazilian’s mistake in pre-season and performances last term show his fears were justified.
In other Aston Villa news, one pundit has shared whether the Villans could enter the transfer race for Ivan Toney
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