With crunch games ahead, the sight of Pau Torres making his Aston Villa return this week will come as a crucial boost for us.
The 28-year-old has been sidelined since the end of December after suffering a broken metatarsal, and although we were struggling defensively prior to his setback, we’ve certainly not found too many solutions in his absence.
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That’s not to take away from the impact Tyrone Mings has made since he came back into the side on a consistent basis after a lengthy layoff of his own, as the Villa stalwart does make us a more robust and resilient defensive unit with his influence.
Further, we’re undoubtedly going to need his characteristics between now and the end of the season for certain games and opposition, and so the strength of our squad will hopefully come to the fore in the coming weeks and months.
However, the Villa faithful fully appreciate what Torres brings to the side, both in terms of his defensive organisational skills, composure and technical ability to make an important impact in both phases of the game.
Under Unai Emery, we’ve seen a clear shift in how we want to play, and it often involves building out from the back and trying to draw sides in before playing through their press and exploiting space in midfield and the final third.
The Spanish international is among the best to do that particular role on the left side of a centre-half pairing, as he has the vision, passing range and quality on the ball to help make us tick and play the style of football that Emery wants, and that has proven to be so successful since he arrived.
There is a sense that will only become more important when we prepare to face Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League quarter-finals and in critical showdowns in the FA Cup and Premier League, as we’ll want to dominate and control games more consistently, and maximise our strengths as well as limit those of the opposition.
Admittedly, both Torres and the defence collectively still need to improve in becoming more difficult to break down, but with three clean sheets in our last four games across all competitions and having won four on the bounce, we look as though we’ve started to find answers and solutions in that department.
When the pressure is on, either in a winning situation or where we’re chasing the game, we’re going to need cool, experienced heads to lead by example and set the tone for how we want to play and approach it, rather than allowing games to get away from us in those scenarios and things become chaotic.
Emery will have unequivocal faith in Torres to do that for the team, and so his return at this stage of the season could prove to be an absolutely fundamental boost for us in our pursuit of success this year.