While every Aston Villa player is making a key contribution so far this season, there is one particular partnership that is proving to be fundamental to our success.
After missing out against Manchester United having picked up a knock, Amadou Onana returned to the Villa starting line-up this weekend in our win over Fulham, and subsequently restored our preferred midfield pivot partnership alongside his compatriot Youri Tielemans.
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The pair have starred so far this season as they’ve given us a foothold and control in games week in and week out, and it’s the midfield duo that has evidently become Unai Emery primary choice as he’s looked to evolve our style of play while trying to find a solution following the departure of Douglas Luiz over the summer.
What we’ve got now is arguably an even more effective midfield, and that’s with Boubacar Kamara on the verge of returning from a lengthy injury layoff and making us even stronger in that department.
With Onana’s agility and athleticism to break up the opposition’s play and regain possession, coupled with the quality and class of Tielemans to pull the strings in that deeper role and play through the lines to allow our attacking players to break at defences with pace, Villa looked so much more impactful, methodical and clinical in how we executed our gameplan.
The combination of their strengths and qualities and how they complement each other adds a rhythm and fluidity to our build-up play, and there is a more effective tempo about us when they are working in tandem to maintain a higher level of control to build sustained pressure and find breakthroughs.
Having that in our engine room and orchestrating what happens around them in both phases has been so important, and it’s hoped that we can keep them fit in the coming weeks and months as they’ll have big roles to play as we look to continue to progress and build on our impressive start to the campaign.
As noted above, Villa have strength in depth now too with Kamara set to return soon after making the bench this weekend, while Ross Barkley gives us technical quality and the ability to dictate in possession, whether that’s with, or instead of, Tielemans in that specific role.
It will be fascinating to see how that competition for places shakes out as Kamara will ultimately look to displace Onana, but if we are to compete at the top level for major honours, that’s a fundamental part of getting to that status and having the tools to win trophies and compete across multiple fronts.
Particularly given the way in which Emery wants us to play and that all-important buzzword of control though, our Belgian duo are implementing those principles and ideas very effectively thus far, and it’s been a key aspect as to why we’ve started so well this year and softened the blow of losing Luiz, while Kamara will need time to get back to his best level.
Things will get tougher too in terms of opposition and schedule, and there will either be the need to rest and rotate or cover for new injury blows. That said, it was great to see Onana alongside Tielemans again this weekend as their influence was a critical factor in why we were able to come from behind once again to secure all three points with another mature and composed display.