Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has backed Andres Garcia after his mistake against Liverpool, while reaffirming his commitment to how he wants us to play.
The 22-year-old produced another encouraging and positive performance on Wednesday night in our 2-2 draw with the Premier League leaders, as he started the game well and recovered after his mistake led to the opening goal for the visitors.
READ MORE: Potential injury boost for Villa touted ahead of Chelsea clash
His wayward pass was ultimately punished as Mohamed Salah broke the deadlock, but we also saw how important the Spaniard’s technical ability and composure in possession is to how we want to play, as he gives another option and way of building out from defence in a wider area, particularly when the middle of the pitch is congested.
Emery is committed to playing his preferred style and brand of football which starts with possession and playing out from the back, and although we’ve encountered problems throughout his tenure thus far at various points, we’ve also seen how effective and pleasing on the eye it can be when it works.
John McGinn in particular struggled early on against Liverpool as his loose passing almost got us in trouble, but it was Garcia’s error that was pounced on as we fell behind. Nevertheless, the Villa boss not only rightly defended our January recruit as he did a lot of positive things in midweek too, but he reaffirmed our commitment to playing that way and believes the players are continuing to progress and improve in that aspect of the game.
“The same problem we were having sometimes two years ago but overall trying to analyse and to get better, to play dominating and try to get position with the players and start winning matches through it,” Emery said in his post-match press conference, as per BirminghamLive. “Now, of course, we have to try to avoid mistakes but we have to accept mistakes and try to learn, to get better through it. We conceded one goal like that but I will never punish one action like that in the squad with the players.
“Always as well, Kamara is performing very well. Last year or two years ago maybe we had three or four mistakes (from Kamara) like today from Andres Garcia but we are always moving forward in the same idea.
“Every team can have some mistakes like that when they are trying to play with one idea and style. Of course, we are adding a lot of mistakes like that so we need to be more clinical with our analysis but overall in two years, we are building the idea and the structure, getting better.
“It is more deep, the argument of why we want to try to dominate and to play in this idea.”
Emery has given Villa an identity and style of play since he was appointed, and there really should be no issue with seeing us playing out from defence as it ultimately forms part of our fabric now as a team, and will continue to lead to decisive and critical passages of play that allow us to open teams up.
Perhaps the more relevant criticism is that we struggle at times to come up with a Plan B against sides who frustrate us and try to stop us from playing that way, and that’s part of the ongoing development of this team to be able to adapt and find alternative ways to break opponents down.
Chelsea will be similar to Liverpool in many ways when we face them this weekend as they won’t come to Villa Park just to sit back and let us dominate, and that should suit us. However, while we’re rightly not deviating away from our identity and style of play, we have to be more clinical and accurate in the way in which we implement it, and that starts with cutting out avoidable mistakes.
