Following his stint on the sidelines due to injury, Aston Villa midfielder Youri Tielemans has returned and is cementing his place in Unai Emery’s starting XI once again.
After his arrival on a free transfer last summer, the 26-year-old enjoyed a fast start at Villa as he impressed over pre-season and staked his claim for a starting berth.
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However, with the unenviable task of trying to displace one of Douglas Luiz, Boubacar Kamara or John McGinn, the Belgian international found playing time hard to come by in the Villa midfield and his minutes were restricted despite our push to compete on multiple fronts.
What made life more difficult for Tielemans was that he also had a string of underwhelming performances in that early period, and so it looked like a tough time for him as he tried to integrate and adapt to Emery’s system and demands.
Fortunately, he began to find his feet prior to the festive period, and between mid-November and mid-December, he solidified his place in the Villa line-up and stood out in the advanced attacking midfield role behind Ollie Watkins with some big wins coming along the way, most notably against Man City and Arsenal.
A calf injury then derailed his momentum as he sat out six games as a result, but having made his comeback last month, Tielemans is now starting to settle again and showcase his quality.
“It was very good,” Tielemans told VillaTV when asked about our win over Sheffield Utd this weekend. “We’ve come from a defeat at home and we really wanted to get a good result here, and to bounce back after Tuesday night. We did that.
“We had a really good game, a good result, so we can keep going from here.
“It was very enjoyable. We scored four goals by half-time and we just wanted to keep going in the second half, keep improving as a team and keep attacking. That’s what we did. We scored the fifth goal straightaway. We tried to get some more but they didn’t come unfortunately.
“I’m happy with my first Premier League goal for the club, hopefully I can keep going in this form. It did (nearly come moments earlier). I was very unfortunate with the strike, but I got it.”
Aside from a brilliant strike as he registered his first league goal for Villa, Tielemans ended the game with 56 touches, 82 percent passing completion and two key passes. Beyond the numbers, he showed great energy and tenacity out of possession too in applying pressure up the pitch and making it difficult for the hosts to play out.
That’s now two goals and four assists in 28 appearances so far this season for the Belgian midfielder, and coupled with our other options, he’s starting to make that No.10 role his own as he looks comfortable and effective when deployed there.
Not only does Tielemans do well in finding pockets of space between the lines to link our play together, but he’s also able to turn and play key passes into dangerous areas to help create openings with his technical ability and vision.
Further, alongside Watkins, they do an important job of defending from the front, and so there appears to be a great balance there when he plays in that advanced, central role as opposed to a wider midfield position, in which both he and the team have struggled with.
A knock-on effect of Tielemans playing that role is that he frees up Leon Bailey to provide width and go direct down our right flank, and as we saw in the latter stages against Sheffield Utd, perhaps that’s a model that Emery will follow to try and get the best out of Moussa Diaby too, as he looked much more confident attacking players one-v-one in those areas.
It also allows John McGinn to operate on the opposite side and influence the game from there, and combined with Luiz, Kamara, Bailey and Watkins, we seem to have a really balanced attack and team as a whole in both phases of the game.
With Morgan Rogers adding further competition in the squad along with Jacob Ramsey, Nicolo Zaniolo and Emiliano Buendia when he returns from injury, Tielemans will have to continue to operate at a high level if he wants to keep his place. However, that’s the hallmark of a club trying to compete at the very top for silverware, and so we’ll hopefully see Tielemans and his teammates push each other on in the battle to cement their spot in Emery’s strongest XI.
Touch. Shoot. Goal. 🚀
Youri Tielemans™️ pic.twitter.com/DzdJMZ9vli
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) February 3, 2024