Unai Emery has criticised one of his Aston Villa players after what he did against Fulham on Saturday afternoon.
Aston Villa entered this contest with some excellent news as John McGinn, Amadou Onana and Boubacar Kamara returned to the matchday squad.
Unai Emery’s men went in search of their fifth win of the campaign but just like they did against Ipswich Town, they went behind in the contest, with Raul Jimenez putting Fulham in front.
The visitors fired back shortly after, though, as Morgan Rogers scored his second goal of the season before Emi Martinez was forced into more action at the other end, saving a tame Andreas Pereira penalty that Matty Cash conceded.
Fortunately, this proved to be the turning point in the match as the visitors rallied in the second half through Ollie Watkins while an Issa Diop own-goal saw Villa secure a 3-1 victory over Fulham.
While there were plenty of positives to come from the game, including the display of Youri Tielemans, Emery was critical of one player.
Unai Emery critical of Pau Torres vs Fulham
Aston Villa centre-back Pau Torres rarely makes an error, whether he’s marshalling his side defensively or spraying the ball around the pitch.
However, the Spaniard was at fault for Fulham’s opening goal. Torres allowed Bernd Leno’s long kick to sail over his head before being outmuscled by Jimenez, who coolly finished past Martinez.
If there is one weakness in the 27-year-old’s game, it’s his upper body strength in those duels, and Emery explained how he must be ‘stronger’ in these situations.
“Pau Torres needs to be stronger in his duels with his opponent. But he knows. We are working on it and he reacted fantastic after the goal,” Emery said as per journalist Jacob Tanswell.
Although Torres will have been disappointed to get beaten in that position, the Aston Villa boss luckily said that he is ‘working’ on improving his strength in duels and reacted fantastically after the goal.
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Aston Villa’s high line is risk vs reward
Torres was caught out with a simple long ball over the defence but that is the risk Villa take to reap rewards at the other end.
Ultimately, the Spaniard’s mistake didn’t cost them in the grand scheme of the match, with the likes of Rogers and Watkins turning on the style.
So, there shouldn’t be many concerns aimed towards him however, if he can become more difficult to outstrength, the defender will be more capable in these situations.
As Emery said, the £100k-a-week star was fantastic, and that was depicted by his statistics.
Torres completed 92% of his passes, as per Sofascore, won three ground duels and made two clearances, in what was a usually calm performance apart from that one moment.
