Aston Villa squandered the opportunity to go level on points with Liverpool at the top of the Premier League on Sunday as they drew 2-2 with Ipswich Town.
It is always difficult to go away to a newly-promoted club in the first few weeks of the season and that is exactly how it proved for Aston Villa against Ipswich.
Ipswich made it a real battle at Portman Road and Unai Emery will have ended the game relieved to take a point as their opponents looked more likely to take all three points in the closing stages.
Goals from Liam Delap either side of Villa goals from Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins saw both sides settle for a point but the game highlighted one shortcoming of Villa’s summer transfer business.
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Diego Carlos struggles for Aston Villa against Ipswich
With Matty Cash still injured, Ezri Konsa lined up at right-back against Ipswich with Diego Carlos playing alongside Pau Torres at centre-back.
In hindsight this was a mistake from Emery as Carlos struggled massively up against the fast and powerful Delap who left him chasing shadows for his second goal.
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Speaking on Delap on Sky Sports punditry duty, Jamie Redknapp claimed: “He terrorised Diego Carlos all game. He couldn’t live with his power, skill and his finishing.”
According to Sofascore, Carlos won just two of his five duels against Ipswich which shows just how tough he found it against a physical side.
Konsa was also less than comfortable up against Ipswich winger Jack Clarke and much prefers to play at the centre of the defence so emery needs to find a solution with a huge game against Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Wednesday night.
Aston Villa will regret not signing a centre-back this summer
This problem is one that could have been resolved quite easily had Villa signed a centre-back in the summer.
Lutsharel Geertruida was the primary target and he was made all the more attractive due to his ability to play right-back just as well as he does centre-back.
Villa missed out to RB Leipzig for the Dutch defender’s signature, though, meaning the sale of Carlos was put on hold and he has now had to come into the side due to Cash’s injury.
Carlos is a very aggressive defender and this has often been his downfall, whilst Konsa is a much calmer presence at the heart of the Villa defence.
With Tyrone Mings still not back from the ACL injury he sustained on the opening day of the 2023/24 Premier League season and Cash injured, the failure to sign another centre-back could prove very costly as the season progresses.
