Credit: Manh Tung - Breaking Media

James Barker

Sat 4 April 2026 14:10, UK

Boubacar Kamara and Amadou Onana have been superb for Aston Villa this season, and their underlying Premier League stats reflect that.

Unfortunately for Kamara, his season looks to have been ended when suffering a knee injury in Aston Villa’s FA Cup win over Tottenham back in January.

Up to that point, the 26-year-old was having a career campaign at Villa Park, with a goal and four assists in 26 total appearances in Unai Emery‘s side.

Onana, meanwhile, has enjoyed an impressive sophomore season in B6, turning out 31 times in all competitions, and starting 19 of his 22 league appearances.

So, with only seven Premier League games to go, both of these central midfielders have provided enough evidence to suggest that Villa’s engine room is in safe hands for the foreseeable future.

Boubacar Kamara and Amadou Onana’s league stats compared

Villa fans have been missing Kamara, with the Frenchman arguably the team’s best and most important player up until his injury.

It’s indeed been no coincidence that Villa’s league form began to dip in the weeks that followed his absence, and you do wonder whether Emery’s men could’ve sustained their title challenge had he not been sidelined.

Onana in particular has seen his workload increase considerably following Kamara’s injury, as he’s now playing the full 90 minutes pretty much every week, whereas that wasn’t always the case before.

The Belgian international has taken it in his stride though, and despite one or two sub-par showings here and there, he’s largely been excellent over the course of the season.

But who out of Onana and Kamara have had the better campaign? To help figure that out, let’s take a look at some of their underlying numbers via Sofascore.

Kamara has a slightly better passing accuracy of 88 per cent over Onana’s 87 per cent, and has also won 2.1 tackles per game compared to the latter’s 2.0 respectively.

However, Onana has won 61.6 per cent of his ground duels as opposed to Kamara’s 54.1 per cent, and has also lost possession fewer times per game, with his 6.2 possession lost per match trumping Kamara’s 8.1 respectively.

Onana has missed three big chances whilst Kamara has missed just two, but the Belgian is registering 0.3 shots on target per game, whereas the Frenchman is averaging 0.2.

In terms of dribble success rate, Onana has a higher win rate percentage of 50 per cent over Kamara’s 45.2, but it’s the latter who has completed more successful dribbles per game, with 0.8 beating Onana’s 0.3.

Villa should build the team around Kamara and Onana

Overall then, Onana and Kamara have been very hard to separate this season regarding their underlying numbers, with both players putting up highly impressive figures.

The key to any successful team is a consistent and strong engine room, especially under a manager like Emery, who wants his team to be quick on transitions and dominate the tempo of matches.

Onana and Kamara provide him and Villa with that, and with both of them being only 24 and 26 respectively, neither may have reached the peak of their powers yet either.

So, these two should be the cornerstone pieces of Aston Villa’s team of the future, and if so, then the Villans can build their side around them safe in the knowledge their on strong foundations.