Manchester City won’t forget their visit to Villa Park in a hurry, with Aston Villa stars Pau Torres and Ezri Konsa keeping one of world football’s most devastating attacks ominously quiet.
Speaking on the Football Daily Podcast, Pat Nevin was raving about the defensive duo.
Aston Villa manager Unai Emery is working wonders at Villa right now.
The Villains have now won 14 league games on the bounce at home and moved above Manchester City in the Premier League.
It took a deflected Leon Bailey strike to secure all three points but in reality, they should have won the match by a much wider margin.
There would have been a few concerns among the fanbase after the opening game of the season.
Not only were Villa put to the sword by Newcastle, losing 5-1 at St. James’ Park, but they lost influential defender Tyrone Mings to a serious injury.
It speaks volumes about Emery’s coaching that Pau Torres and Ezri Konsa have quickly become a formidable partnership in such a short space of time as Manchester City discovered last night.
The £33m Spanish international was tasked with keeping Erling Haaland quiet and he certainly did that, while nearly scoring at the other end.
Konsa has been on another level this season too and continued that fine form last night.
Torres and Konsa in fine form against Manchester City
Speaking about the match, Nevin said: “You think about it, there were very, very few opportunities if any for Haaland, certainly in the second half, nothing, absolutely not a sniff.
“They didn’t have any players up there helping him either, he had a tough time, but he was up against two players on great form.
“That includes Pau Torres, Pau was absolutely magnificent at the back, maybe second only to Ezri Konsa who was very, very, very special as well.”
The aim for Aston Villa this season would have been to try and improve on their seventh-place finish last year.
Considering the position they were in when Unai Emery took over, qualifying for Europe was arguably one of the greatest feats in the Premier League during the last campaign.
Their recruitment in the summer has helped them build on that, with Torres and Moussa Diaby particularly impressive.
Even Youri Tielemans is starting to show what he’s capable of, but it’s the way Emery has improved the existing squad that’s so impressive.
If he’s found a combination in Torres and Konsa that can keep Manchester City quiet, then it’s hard to know just how far this team can go.
Their match at the weekend against Arsenal promises to be another litmus test of their Champions League potential having opened up a five-point gap over sixth-place Manchester United.
Villa are overcoming every attacking test they face this season
As we reach the halfway point in the campaign, it’s important to look at whether Torres and Konsa’s ability to shut down a potent Man City attack was a one-off or a more encouraging trend.
The first thing to realise is that they’ve also got a world-class goalkeeper behind them in Emi Martinez.
The World Cup winner has the second-highest post-shot expected goals minus goals allowed figure in the league.
That means that compared to the quality of shots he’s faced, he’s saved more shots than he was expected to, with only Luton Town’s Thomas Kaminski achieving a better ratio.
Martinez’s presence has helped Konsa and Torres, while in Boubacar Kamara, Douglas Luiz and John McGinn, they have an extremely hard-working trio of midfielders screening them.
Villa do give up chances due to their expressive style of play in attacks, but more often than not they can snuff it out before Martinez is tested.
Teams will be working hard to try and figure Emery’s side out, but that will be easier said than done given their impressive start to the season.
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