One Aston Villa expert has now explained where Unai Emery went wrong after being knocked out of the Carabao Cup.
Aston Villa hosted Crystal Palace and were hoping to reach the quarter-finals for the first time in 12 years.
Unai Emery fully rotated his squad from the draw against Bournemouth, with John McGinn the only survivor from the weekend.
The starting XI featured Tyrone Mings and Boubacar Kamara, who were both making their first starts in 14 months and eight months respectively.
Mings was colossal at the back while Kamara was amazing in midfield, as the Villa duo turned in a performance that made it look like they had never been gone.
Sadly, they both didn’t get the victory they were craving as goals from Eberechi Eze and Daichi Kamada booked the visitors’ place in the quarter-finals as Emery drew some rare criticism.
Villa were always going to make wholesale changes for a Carabao Cup tie, regardless of who they were playing against.
However, Emery made the questionable decision to leave some of his first-team stars out of the squad completely, most notably Ollie Watkins, Ezri Konsa, Pau Torres, Youri Tielemans and Morgan Rogers.
It meant that the Spaniard didn’t have many players who could change the game from the bench and he instead subbed on youngsters Jamaldeen Jimoh, Lamare Bogarde and Kadan Young.
Villa expert Jacob Tanswell raised an issue with Emery’s thinking on this occasion and felt there wasn’t enough ‘firepower’ from the bench that the likes of Watkins and Rogers would have offered.
Speaking on the 1874 podcast, Tanswell criticised the Villa boss: “I just think the bench was unbalanced really.
“There was Jacob Ramsey and Matty Cash but he didn’t have a lot else. The young kids shouldn’t be expected to try and overturn a game at that point. It just felt like the balance of the bench was my main issue.
“The starting lineup I had no issue with, I think it was quite strong, good enough to win. But you need that firepower off the bench and that was the issue. Of course, Emery is fantastic and we’ve waxed lyrical about him so many times. You can disagree with him and I disagreed with him yesterday.”
Emery will feel that being knocked out of the Carabao Cup is a blessing in the long run as it gives the Spanish tactician fewer fixtures to manage.
However, there is a sense of disappointment emerging after Villa were knocked out by Palace, a team they could have beaten if they had some of their key players available from the bench.
It appears the Aston Villa manager was happy to bow out by bringing a couple of youngsters off the bench as opposed to putting some of his other first-teamers in the squad.
But, to confirm his legacy as Villa’s greatest-ever manager, you feel like Emery has to eventually win a trophy and the Carabao Cup was a fantastic chance of doing that.
There seems little chance that they can win the Premier League or Champions League, so triumphing in the EFL Cup would have been their best bet however, that is no longer a possibility.
Related Posts