Aston Villa winger Moussa Diaby must now show his worth to Unai Emery, starting in today’s fixture against Everton.
Unai Emery has built up a solid reputation for significantly improving his players prospects.
When he arrived at the club, Ollie Watkins was far from a clinical striker but now only Erling Haaland and Mohamed Salah have produced more goal contributions than him in this season’s Premier League.
Similar can be said for Douglas Luiz, who has been transformed into a serious attacking weapon, matching some of the league’s best-attacking midfielders since Emery took to the helm.
He’s also galvanised Leon Bailey into the player Villa thought they signed in 2021. The Jamaican has nine goals and eight assists in all competitions this term.
But there is one man who Villa supporters perhaps expected more from, and that is Moussa Diaby.
The 24-year-old arrived for a club-record fee from Bayer Leverkusen in the summer and although he’s shown glimpses of his incredible talent, you feel there is still more to come from the Frenchman.
During his final season in Germany, in 33 appearances from right wing he scored nine goals and supplied eight assists.
Since he came to Villa Park, however, Diaby has been mainly utilised as an attacking midfielder/second striker, tucking in behind Watkins and weighing in with ten goal contributions.
That is a decent start to life in claret and blue, but he’ll be desperate to find a level of consistency in the last five months of the campaign.
Why Moussa Diaby must now show his worth to Unai Emery
After breaking his Villa Park scoring duck at the end of October, Diaby insisted there was more to come, but you feel the supporters are yet to see the best from him, which shows how talented he is.
During this campaign, he’s found himself in and out of the starting XI with Emery switching up his team tactically.
In the back-to-back victories against Manchester City and Arsenal, Diaby was named on the bench on both occasions, coming on for five minutes against City and for the second half against the Gunners.
Emery preferred to use Youri Tielemans – who impressed in both those wins – but has since missed the club’s last six games in all competitions through injury.
In the last ten matches in the league, however, Diaby only has one goal and one assist to show for himself during that run.
He’s not demonstrating the levels of consistency that Emery would have wanted and now has to prove his worth to the Spaniard.
Hailed as a “wonderful talent” by Danny Murphy earlier on in the campaign, the nine-cap international can be a game-changer on his day and does have an extra gear to go to.
He proved that in the 3-2 victory over Burnley, though he must now continue reaching those levels, starting in today’s trip to Goodison Park.
