Martin Keown has now revealed which Aston Villa player caught him by ‘surprise’ with his performance against West Ham United.
Aston Villa got off to the best start possible last weekend as Jhon Duran’s late winner secured all three points against West Ham.
The Villans will now be keen to back that up with a victory over Arsenal, a side they did the double over last term and effectively stopped them from lifting the Premier League title.
Unai Emery is likely to select the same starting XI against the Gunners, although he could make one change by dropping Matty Cash for Diego Carlos.
In the starting lineup at the London Stadium, Emery only included one new signing and that was midfielder Amadou Onana, who left one former Arsenal defender shocked by his display.
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Martin Keown explains why he was ‘surprised’ by Amadou Onana against West Ham
Onana was signed for £50 million from Everton this summer and had big shoes to fill following the departure of Douglas Luiz.
The Belgian machine didn’t let that level of expectation impact him in his first game, though, as Onana opened the scoring inside four minutes and was then awarded Man of the Match.
Alan Shearer was left impressed by how he dominated West Ham’s midfield while fellow pundit Martin Keown was ‘surprised’ at how effectively he slotted into the side alongside Youri Tielemans.
In his column for the Daily Mail, Keown wrote: “Some new signings can adjust in no time at all, others take longer. Amadou Onana surprised me with an excellent debut for Villa. Their £50million record signing dovetailed seamlessly into midfield alongside Youri Tielemens at West Ham.
“Unai Emery is a coach of incredible detail. They have meetings about meetings at Villa because he wants to feed extensive information to his players and Onana showed why he was the only new face trusted to start last Saturday.”
It was a ‘terrific’ way for Onana to get his Villa career up and running but now a much bigger test awaits as he comes up against some world-class players.
Amadou Onana’s challenge v Arsenal
Onana was everywhere in midfield next to the elegant Tielemans, as he pulled the strings while the towering Belgian reclaimed possession.
A much bigger challenge is now presented to the 23-year-old, who will be looking to outsmart world-class midfielders Martin Odegaard and Declan Rice this evening.
It’s almost impossible to stop Arsenal from having long spells of possession however, Onana can prevent Odegaard, in particular, from entering dangerous areas of the pitch.
The Norwegian playmaker enjoys operating in the half space between centre-back and left-back, as he combines with Bukayo Saka down the right.
Odegaard will be aiming to thread through balls into Saka and it’s Onana’s job to stop it at the source. Indeed, if the Belgian can gain a stranglehold on the midfield, Villa will have a great chance of wreaking havoc in attack.
