The world-class player Emery is not getting the best out of

Robin Bairner

• 15 Mar 2024 11:20 GMT
• 6 min read

There is no doubting the quality of job that Aston Villa manager Unai Emery is doing, but that does not mean his style suits his whole squad. Indeed, there is one player whose talents at Villa Park are not being fully exploited.

Moussa Diaby arrived at the Villans last summer from Bayer Leverkusen for a fee of €55 million. The 24-year-old is the most expensive player in club history.

What he has produced since moving to the Premier League, though, is not the sum of his capabilities.

READ MORE: Latest Aston Villa transfer rumours

After 40 matches for his new club, he has seven goals and seven assists – not a bad total for a young player moving to a new league, but still not reaching the heights he is able to attain.

Last season, for example, he mustered 14 goals and 11 assists in 48 games for Leverkusen.

Diaby has at times frustrated the Villa supporters. Although he ultimately scored in Thursday’s Conference League clash with Ajax, which Emery’s side strolled to a 4-0 win in, he highlighted why he is struggling under the Spaniard.

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Asked to face up against a defender, he looked afraid to take his man on and break the game using his individual talents.

This, though, is not his game. He is more comfortable running onto more direct passes over the top. Currently, he is a square peg in a round hole.

How to unlock Diaby

Villa do have the opportunity to develop the former PSG youth, though.

One of the key areas they will be looking at is his physicality. Bulk him up and he should be more capable of running at opponents. He is currently afraid to back himself in a strength battle against full-backs.

Similarly, there appears an issue of confidence. His midweek goal should help, but so too would more success in one-on-one situations, which could be remedied by the above.

Data analytics experts SciSports report Diaby is one of Aston Villa’s best players. Based on hundreds of in-game data points, he returns a SciSkill score of 115.5. Ollie Watson is the only player at Emery’s disposal who surpasses that.

Diaby, though, has a higher ceiling than the centre-forward. SciSports calculates that he could rise to having a score of 128.3, marginally ahead of Jacob Ramsey and Boubacar Kamara.

To put this into further context, this puts him among the 10 wingers with the highest potential in world football along with the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Junior and Bukayo Saka. He clearly has the capacity to become world class.

Emery might not be getting the most out of Diaby yet, but if he can unlock his full capacity, he will be a huge asset to Aston Villa.