Stephen Warnock thinks Leon Bailey is unable to last 90 minutes for Aston Villa under Unai Emery.
At the weekend, Aston Villa suffered a damaging 2-1 defeat to Manchester United, which opened the Champions League door to their rivals.
One of the talking points from that game was Unai Emery’s call to sub Leon Bailey off when Moussa Diaby was also on the pitch.
Stephen Warnock defended the manager’s call, but also pointed out how Leon Bailey ‘more often than not’, doesn’t play the full 90 minutes for Aston Villa, as he told The Football Show on Sky Sports.
The 26-year-old, who recently put pen-to-paper on a new contract, has been in devastating form this season, scoring seven goals and supplying six assists.
But the left-footed trickster has only completed 90 minutes on one occasion in the Premier League this season, which backs up the above point.
In terms of injury problems, that was an issue for the Jamaican star during the early stages of his Aston Villa career, but it has settled down now.
Leon Bailey not completing 90 minutes for Aston Villa
“I thought when Diaby came on and he was in that central position, he was causing a lot of problems,” said Warnock.
“He was drawing the centre-halves away and allowing Bailey to be isolated in a one-v-one situation. We don’t know the full situation. He might have an injury (regarding his recent back problems).
“And Bailey doesn’t, more often than not, last the full 90. He does need to be protected because he is a little injury-prone, let’s be quite blunt to that.”
Playing Leon Bailey and Moussa Diaby together
The injuries just aren’t stopping after the blow regarding Boubacar Kamara, it’s Diego Carlos who has now seemingly joined that growing party.
It leaves Villa weak in many areas across the pitch and it will be interesting to see what road Emery decides to go down now.
Will Emery take a risk and play Bailey and Diaby together? The latter’s form has dropped off and it seems as though he needs his partner in crime to get going again.
Villa are much weaker defensively now anyway with the injuries, so why not just go for it and try to outscore teams from now until the end of the season?!
