Youri Tielemans made a ‘very wise choice’ joining Aston Villa instead of Jose Mourinho’s Roma after Leicester City were relegated from the Premier League at the end of May.
Arguably no player epitomised Leicester’s decline quite like Youri Tielemans. The man who scored that stunning long-range winner in the FA Cup final back in 2021 a shadow of his once-glorious self as Dean Smith’s side dropped out of the top-flight just two years later.
After perhaps the poorest season of his senior career, and with interest from the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool drying up, Belgian reporter Filip Joos perhaps has a point when he suggests that a move to Aston Villa is make or break for Tielemans’ hopes of realising his full potential.
Aston Villa sign Youri Tielamans from Leicester City
“Tielemans is a great football player, with a wonderful long shot,” Joos tells Sporza. “But he is not strong enough defensively for the number six (role). He is not a number ten and, for the number eight (position), he runs a little too little without the ball in modern football.
“You have three roles that he can do, but where he falls slightly short. He is the best all-rounder, but rarely the best six, eight or ten.
“It is now or never to become ‘100 per cent Tielemans’ again on a regular basis. He will go to a good club to continue his career.”
Joos feels that Tielemans, who signed a four-year deal over the weekend, can only benefit from working alongside the industrious Douglas Luiz, and under a coach, in Unai Emery, who dragged Villa from a relegation battle and into Europe after replacing Steven Gerrard in the dugout.
‘A very wise choice’
“He can learn a lot from the Brazil international Douglas Luiz. It is great that he will now also be given the responsibility of a coach who strives for good football,” Joos adds, insisting that Emery is a better fit for a player in need of a confidence boost than the fork-tongued Jose Mourinho.
“I think it’s a very wise choice. Aston Villa has the wind in its sails and, with Unai Emery, there is a great coach at the helm.
“There was talk of AS Roma for a while. That (may have been) make or break for Tielemans. And with Jose Mourinho’s football, it could have been ‘break’.
“Emery is just as tight on his players, but from a football perspective. (Aston Villa) seems to me a great choice.”
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