After a horrendous year for Emiliano Buendia, Aston Villa fans shared in his delight as he scored in our 2-1 win over Wycombe Wanderers in the Carabao Cup this week.
The 27-year-old made his first senior start since May 2023 after suffering a serious knee injury on the eve of last season, as the Argentine playmaker had to go through a gruelling rehabilitation process to get back to where he is today.
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The relief and happiness was evident in his celebration as his brilliant looping header put us ahead at Adams Park, and with the captain’s armband for the night too, it didn’t come as a surprise that Buendia was delighted with how the game went on a memorable night for him.
“It’s a really special night,” he told Sky Sports. “To come back and play for this club, it’s my fourth season here, I really love this football club, so today, to have the captain’s armband, to help the team with a goal and get through to the next round is an amazing feeling.”
After scoring twice in his comeback game with the U21s earlier this month, it’s continuing to build belief in Buendia’s ability to return to his previous levels, both in terms of fitness and quality, to make an important impact in the final third.
Prior to his injury setback and following Unai Emery’s appointment in October 2022, the creative ace was an integral part of his plans and an almost ever-present in the side, and so that said a lot about how highly the Villa boss values what Buendia provides him with, both in and out of possession.
The fact that he is finding himself in dangerous, goalscoring positions early on is a real positive, something that he himself highlighted in his post-match interview as he continues to get back up to speed and peak condition to allow his technical ability to make the difference.
Villa have a lot of attacking quality at Emery’s disposal this season, but while the likes of Leon Bailey, Jacob Ramsey and Morgan Rogers all possess pace, power and athleticism, Buendia offers a fundamentally different dynamic with his creativity, vision and technical ability to help us break teams down in a different way.
We saw that in midweek as he started to pick up dangerous pockets of space and link things together, and so although he’s still understandably a little rusty and hasn’t found his best form as of yet, that ability to unlock defences either as a provider or when he pops up in the box and takes his chance, will be vital to our desire to compete across multiple fronts this season.
Certain opposition and game scenarios will require that different look in the final third to pick a pass or drag defenders out of position for others to exploit the space, and so that makes Buendia a pivotal option to have as we look to challenge for silverware and improve on last season’s fourth-place finish in the Premier League.
This game will hopefully be a foundation on which he can build now as he’ll still have a big challenge ahead of him in displacing one of the players named above and getting back into the Villa starting line-up on a regular basis, but it’s such a wonderfully important boost to have Buendia back in the fold, and ready to play his part in this next chapter under Emery.
😍 Emi Buendia goal…#avfc #UTV pic.twitter.com/I3ToggnK2P
— Talk Villa (@thetalkvilla) September 24, 2024
