With the strength in depth in the current Aston Villa squad, Unai Emery has quality options in every position this season battling it out for a starting berth.
Given we’re aiming to compete across multiple competitions in pursuit of silverware, that’s exactly what’s needed to not only drive the standards up at the club, but to also give Emery the ability to rotate and rest players to avoid what we saw in the latter stages of last season.
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Lucas Digne has made the left-back role his own since the second half of last season, to the point where Alex Moreno was ultimately shipped out on loan this past summer.
That said, the big-money signing of Ian Maatsen suggested that the Dutchman would come in and take that spot from Digne, but it hasn’t quite worked out that way as the latter has continued to impress and deservedly kept it to himself.
However, after getting a run out in our win over Bologna in the Champions League this week, Maatsen has staked his claim for a bigger role in the coming weeks, as he delivered a polished performance in which he displayed his defensive and attacking qualities to make a key difference in both phases of the game.
His energy, technical ability and attacking threat all saw him add a different dynamic to our play, and that will be a crucial weapon to have as the season progresses as we look for alternative tactical solutions against different opposition.
The 22-year-old ended the game with an 84 percent passing accuracy, 65 touches, three of three tackles won, six recoveries, 100 percent aerial success rate and two interceptions. Beyond the statistics and figures though, it was clear just how much of an impact he was making as part of the collective.
The expectation is that Digne will return to the Villa XI this weekend when we face Bournemouth in the Premier League, but he’ll know that Maatsen is itching to jump above him in the pecking order, and so time will tell if he’s able to continue to fend him off or if Emery has seen something that changes his mind.
With our Carabao Cup clash with Crystal Palace to follow next week, we’ll likely see Maatsen come back in and get another opportunity to impress, and it ultimately sets up a fascinating watch to see who prevails in that particular battle, and such is the quality in this group, we’ll see that repeated across the entire team in the coming weeks and months.
In turn, it will present Emery with a selection headache as both players are worthy of starting, but it’s certainly a good problem to have to manage, as opposed to not having enough quality and depth and subsequently struggling to maintain our ability to compete.
Opinion will be split on who should start, but with enough games to go round, we’ll likely see rotation continue in the coming weeks, with Maatsen continuing to make his case to leapfrog Digne and become a regular in the Villa backline.