Unai Emery’s biggest concern at Aston Villa this season has been this defence and heading into a clash with Bayern Munich, that isn’t ideal.
Aston Villa enter their Champions League showdown against Bayern Munich in fine form with six wins from eight matches in all competitions.
Unai Emery’s men are scoring goals for fun – 17 to be exact from those games – while their defence leaves much to be desired.
Villa are yet to keep a clean sheet in the Premier League whilst their only shutout this season came in a 3-0 win over Young Boys last month.
The Villans have been punished for their defensive mistakes in some matches and centre-back Diego Carlos is the main culprit behind their downfall.
- READ MORE: Diego Carlos problem now spotted at Aston Villa amid ‘really, really poor’ Ipswich Town verdict
Diego Carlos is in poor form at Aston Villa
Carlos was criticised for his ill-discipline during pre-season and unfortunately, he has continued his bad form into competitive action.
The 31-year-old was guilty of gifting the ball cheaply to Matheus Cunha, who scored the opener in Villa’s 3-1 win over Wolves, and he was even worse against Ipswich.
Liam Delap ‘terrorised’ Carlos on Sunday afternoon as Aston Villa dropped two points while pundit Tim Sherwood lauded Carlos’ defending as ‘so bad’.
That incredibly poor performance in the draw to Ipswich should surely spell the end of the Brazilian in the starting XI, with Ezri Konsa perhaps returning to his role as a centre-back.
However, judging by Emery’s latest comments where he came to the defence of Carlos ahead of the clash with Bayern, the Aston Villa boss is in no rush to discard him from his plans.
Unai Emery defends Aston Villa’s Diego Carlos
“In football there can be mistakes,” Emery said as per Birmingham Live. “We have to accept it. Starting with me. Every match I am trying to be humble to identify my mistakes.
“Then, it is my responsibility to correct those mistakes after the matches. Try to correct it quickly and don’t repeat it. With the players it is the same.
“I am trying to identify overall the mistakes we are getting in each match and deeply when some mistakes are coming from individual players. But I never punish mistakes that players make for the next matches. I am trying to correct it through video and working with the players on the pitch.
“We worked yesterday morning and of course, I want to try to correct by practising and hopefully tomorrow on the field.”
Should Carlos be dropped vs Bayern Munich?
Since Matty Cash is still not fit enough to start, Emery is left with a key decision to make; persist with Carlos in the heart of defence and continue with Konsa at right-back, or discard Carlos from the starting XI and bring one of Kosta Nedeljkovic or Lamare Bogarde into the side.
Carlos is supremely experienced in big games and certainly in European competition but his recent form warrants being dropped, and that could see Bogarde start instead.
The 20-year-old played at right-back in the 3-0 win over Young Boys, and although he struggled at times, Emery could place his faith in the young Dutchman once more.
