Aston Villa beat West Ham United 4-1 and Douglas Luiz broke a record and was key to the performance, but Unai Emery had one issue.
It was Aston Villa’s first win, at Villa Park, over West Ham since 2015 and it was convincing.
Douglas Luiz had a great effort saved by Alphonse Areola early on but had his goal not long after that. Ollie Watkins laid the ball off and he drilled the ball, via a deflection, past the Frenchman.
The Brazilian had his second from the penalty spot in the second half. Ezri Konsa was brought down by Edson Alvarez and the referee pointed to the spot.
Watkins and Leon Bailey secured the 4-1 win and saw Villa move back up to fifth place.
What did Unai Emery say about Douglas Luiz?
Luiz is the highest-scoring midfielder in the Premier League at the time of writing and has been one of Villa’s star men.
His performances at Villa Park in recent times have been top class and long may it continue.
In spite of his top performance, Unai Emery was keen for him not to get too far ahead of himself.
Speaking to The Guardian, the Spaniard said: “It’s a credit to him, firstly. I am very happy with him. But I think he can do better.
“There were some moments after he scored the two goals where we were trying to control the game and I wasn’t happy because he was too relaxed.”
Although his performance was enough to catch the eye of many pundits, his manager is a perfectionist.
Luiz’s importance to Villa
Every Villa player is doing well and it is hard to pinpoint players who are more important than others.
With that being said, Luiz is arguably the jewel in the Villa crown, although he appears to go under the radar for other clubs’ fans.
He is calm and composed on the ball and is just so silky when you watch him.
There is no player that can be compared to him in terms of his ability on the ball, paired with his tenacity going forward and back.
Without him and Boubacar Kamara, Villa would fall apart. Emery being hard on him is only because of how good he is.
