Aston Villa manager, Unai Emery has confirmed the reasoning behind him benching Moussa Diaby for the trip to Bournemouth.
This weekend, Aston Villa travelled to face Bournemouth and were able to fight back from behind twice to secure a point.
The coming weeks are jam-packed with games for Unai Emery and his side with four games in ten days. Starting with the Legia Warsaw clash and ending with Arsenal at Villa Park.
Coming into the game against the Cherries, Villa fans were surprised to see Moussa Diaby dropped to the bench. Although many fans had clamoured for Leon Bailey to start, seeing the Frenchman drop out came out of the blue.
The reason it was more surprising was that he scored an excellent goal against Legia in the Europa Conference League. With that being said, he came on at the Vitality and grabbed the point-winning assist for Ollie Watkins’ goal.
What has Unai Emery said about Moussa Diaby?
With the fixture congestion, the Villans have right now it is no surprise that rotation has been used by Emery. In saying that he had made less changes to his starting XI in the Premier League coming into this one.
With that all being said, the Villa boss wanted to make it clear that this change, to take out Diaby, was to give minutes to fringe players and not for squad rotation.
Discussing this with the Birmingham Mail, Emery said: “It is not rest. As well it is because we have a player like Zaniolo and we have to get the best opportunity to him to play and to get confidence and to get minutes.
“Of course, we played on Thursday, today and two matches next week. It’s difficult to set up the same starting XI in those matches. I am sure, not completely, but I think we will change something for Wednesday.”
There is a hint of squad rotation but it appears to be for confidence reasons as opposed to resting players for other games. With Manchester City and Arsenal coming up, it isn’t the worst idea to give some rest to the Villans’ stars, like Diaby.
Continuing, Emery added: “We have to try as well to use different players. We are trying to build a team, not only 11 players. I will give everyone chances.
“They have to feel important and they have to feel as well playing with their personality as well. We are facing different competitions as well.”
With the Conference League as well as Premier League commitments swallowing Villa up this season, it will be difficult. Squad rotation will be needed but Emery will know how to balance his squad to get the best out of it.
