Villa Preseason Wrap

Villa finished their summer training with a 2-0 victory over Villareal, just more than 24 hours after a heated 1-3 loss to Marseilles. With Unai Emery giving key players more time off than usual, Villa’s 4-0 victory over Roma was probably the best indication of Villa’s upside. In all, Villa packed 8 friendlies into less than a month.

With limited transfer activity so far, Emery had the chance, and need, to give more minutes to young players than we might’ve otherwise expected. And overall, they acquitted themselves well. Hemmings, Rowe, and Jimoh-Aloba did not look out of place and indeed, showed promising glimpses that could be important to Villa’s squad-building finances going forward. One assumes they’ll probably go out on loan, but it could also be the case a couple are kept around the squad. To my mind, Hemmings showed enough pace and aggression that he could be useful in the short term. But I’m guessing they’ll want him to go out and get a lot more minutes under his belt.

The senior core of the side has looked good, too. Ollie has been razor sharp, and Martinez looked to be at the top of his game against Villareal. The usual suspects have all looked like themselves, by and large. Konsa has been shaky, though, and Bailey doesn’t look to have recovered any confidence, compounding that with baffling decisions that needlessly put us under pressure. If we’ve been putting him in the shop window, I can see why no one’s walking in the door.

Maybe more important is that Emi Buendia has been playing with a point to prove and did just about all he could to make his case. Likewise, Lamare Bogarde saw a lot of minutes at RCB and played well, showing more willingness to carry than Konsa. Bizot has looked comfortable, though he hasn’t really been given a chance to show much in the shot-stopping arena.

Beyond the squad, we also saw some tweaks on playing out, including a willingness to go long more often. We also saw some problems with playing out that led to a number of the goals conceded. Sweeping counters and defensive-third turnovers: This is pretty much how we can expect Villa to give up goals. I’ve noticed teams exploiting the right channel (from our perspective) for a ball played into the path of an onrushing attacker in acres of space.

Not sure I’ve got any words of wisdom for Unai here. Known issues, in the end.

On the plus side, Evan Guessand looks a player. Not a lot of minutes (the Marseilles appearance can hardly count given how the game had degenerated), but he looked fast, lively and dangerous in the final 20 or so in Spain. I don’t want to get too excited by such a small sample, but we might have a player on our hands. If Buendia stays and finds his best, we may well have effectively replaced Rashford and Asensio.

Now of course it’s all for real with Newcastle coming to town to kick off the season, apparently without Isak and perhaps even Gordon. They’ll still be handful, but that’s an opportunity we really shouldn’t be passing up.

Over to you.