‘Rare breed’: Merson thinks £12m Aston Villa star is PL’s fourth-most underrated player

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Paul Merson has told Sportskeeda that Ezri Konsa is the fourth-most underrated player in the Premier League today.

The Sky Sports pundit shared that it is ‘quite a shock’ to him that the Villa man is yet to earn an international cap.

Tyrone Mings is now an England regular and he was part of Euro 2020 – many Villa fans feel Konsa outperformed his defensive partner last season.

But it was his towering partner in crime who got the nod in Gareth Southgate’s squad that got beat by Italy in the final.

Despite that, Merson explained why Konsa is in the ‘rare breed’ of defenders in England’s top-flight.

“It comes as quite a shock to me that Ezri Konsa is yet to make his senior debut with England,” said Merson. “Konsa belongs to that rare breed of defenders who excel at everything they do.

“He is great at reading danger and his strength and pace are the ideal qualities you should look for in a Premier League centre-back. Konsa also bursts forward and has already shown that he has plenty of goals in him. 

“Konsa’s a massive aerial threat and loves getting to the end of crosses in the box. At the moment, I reckon there’s not much separating him from Tyrone Mings in that Aston Villa defence.

“The Premier League has a lot of highly-rated players and this could be a factor in the lack of discourse around Ezri Konsa’s ability. I do occasionally wonder if I’m missing something when he isn’t talked about as much as his illustrious colleagues.”

It won’t be too long before Konsa is putting on that England shirt and training at St George’s Park alongside Jack Grealish.

He has everything to his game from great positional sense, calmness, top-quality reader of danger, brilliant body shape when blocking shots, getting other teammates out of danger, brute-like aerial ability in both boxes and pace.

Many Villa fans would probably say that Konsa deserved an England nod ahead of Mings.

But with the way the £12 million man has been performing since moving from Brentford (BBC Sport), he will only continue that next season and then start to make himself heard.