Unai Emery has these two things to answer for in Wolves vs Aston Villa defeat
Aston Villa’s hopes of finishing in the top four took a huge dent on Friday night, in a shambolic West Midlands derby defeat to Wolves.
The Premier League’s bottom side, already destined for Championship football next season, turned over an Aston Villa side who only a few games ago were still firmly in the title race.
Second half goals from Joao Gomes and Rodrigo Gomes respectively sealed a memorable 2-0 win for Wolves, as Unai Emery‘s side left Molineux with their tail between their legs.
That’s now one win from their last six in all competitions for Villa, who could now know that they could end the weekend within a defeat of dropping out of the top four entirely should Man United and Chelsea both win.
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Unai Emery’s Ollie Watkins faith backfired vs Wolves
The first of the two key things Emery has to answer for regarding Aston Villa’s defeat to Wolves comes in his forward line.
Despite having scored just once in his last 10 games in all competitions, Emery decided to stick by the out-of-form Ollie Watkins to lead the line against Wanderers.
This was done at the expense of Tammy Abraham, who had scored in Villa’s previous two games against Leeds and Newcastle respectively coming into Friday’s derby clash.
As such, many Villa fans were expecting to see the 28-year-old get the nod over Watkins, but Emery opted to stick with his number 11, and that backfired massively.
Watkins could only muster 24 touches of the ball in his 86 minutes against Rob Edwards’ side, registering just one shot on goal and giving the ball away 10 times.
The 30-year-old simply wasn’t in the game whatsoever, which not only in a derby match that means so much to both sets of fans, but against the weakest side in the division too, just isn’t good enough.
As such, the experienced centre-forward is now surely playing himself out of Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup plans for England this summer.
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Emery’s use of substitutions vs Wolves was head-scratching
The second key aspect of Villa’s loss to Wolves that Emery has some explaining to do around was his use of substitutions.
Emery didn’t turn to his bench until the hour mark in the game, bringing both Ross Barkley and Leon Bailey on for Jadon Sancho and Douglas Luiz respectively.
Seconds later, Wolves took the lead, and Emery waited a further 10 minutes before introducing Abraham and Ian Maatsen to the fray, before only withdrawing Watkins in the 86th minute for Alysson.
Abraham should’ve been brought on at half-time for Watkins, as should’ve Maatsen for Digne, whilst the decision to bring Luiz off was a fairly baffling one considering he was arguably Villa’s best player on the pitch at that point.
Emery is a superb manager, few would deny him that, but that doesn’t mean he should be immune from criticism, and some of his decisions against Wolves certainly require some questions to be asked.
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