Aston Villa defender Pau Torres is happy to be back with his teammates as we prepare for a challenging season ahead.
A significant contingent of the Villa squad returned to Bodymoor Heath on Monday to begin pre-season preparations, with a number of boosts in the form of injured players returning to work with the group.
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Off the back of an impressive debut campaign with us in which he firmly established himself as an influential figure for Unai Emery, Torres will be looking to build on that and continue to play an integral part in our continued progression and success.
The Spaniard made 39 appearances across all competitions last season, scoring two goals and providing one assist to go with his defensive duties. However, the 27-year-old was also a fundamental presence at the back when it came to helping us build our play out of defence, and we’ll no doubt see more of that in the upcoming campaign.
He did have injury troubles at times and so hopefully he’ll be working on preventing any possible issues flaring up again in the coming weeks and months, but naturally, given what we’ve got to look forward to this year, he’s excited about the season ahead.
“I’m really happy with my first season [at the club],” he told VillaTV. “It’s nice to see again my teammates, to speak about the summer and our experiences and to start again with this amazing season in front of us, I”m really, really excited.
“We have now six weeks in front of us to get back, to again to start with the work that we were doing last season. It’s a good moment in the year to prepare for the new season.
“Players prefer just to play games and not to do these runs on the training pitch,” he joked. “We need to be competitive during the pre-season, we need to have good feelings this pre-season.
“We have a tough season in front of us, with a great challenge like Champions League. We need to be ready, be prepared, to play in the same way all the competitions. The Premier League is so, so important and very tough, and during the first months we will play the Champions League. We are excited and want to play against the big teams.”
While Emery had Clement Lenglet as a back-up option to play as the left-sided centre-half last season, Tyrone Mings will return from injury to take up that role moving forward with the Frenchman’s loan stint not being made permanent.
It remains to be seen how just quickly he can get back to his best form after that serious setback, but he will hopefully provide stiffer competition for that starting berth to keep both on their toes, while we’ll obviously need depth too as we try to compete across multiple competitions again.
Nevertheless, with the way in which Emery wants us to play, Torres will be fundamental either way, and it’s hoped that we can see him take his game to the next level this year to help us continue to improve as a collective.