Transfer analysis: Moussa Diaby brings versatility to Aston Villa
Speed and creativity in one
In Diaby, current Villans coach Unai Emery has chosen a player whose characteristic features are mainly speed, versatility and excellent ball management. He will also find a place in both formations, which the Spanish manager preferred the most during his time in the Premier League.
He can play on the left and right-wing in a 4-2-3-1 formation or on both flanks in a 4-4-2, in which he can also play as a second striker and partner to Ollie Watkins. A similar role to the one Leon Bailey played in a number of Bayer games last season. Just a cursory glance at the names of the new reinforcements will give a clue as to what type of players Villa were most interested in during the current transfer window.
Torres was considered the best stopper in La Liga in terms of his ability to set up dangerous action by bringing the ball out, and Diaby is similarly dominant in that discipline. At the same time, with a top speed of 36.5 km/h, he was one of the Bundesliga's greatest speedsters.
In advanced data metrics measuring the extent to which a player's run-up and dribbling help move the ball into more advantageous positions for scoring goals, he regularly ranked among the top of the competition. In addition, he is a technically superb playmaker with a huge range of creative passing in the final third.
His tackles are also extremely effective. His ability to present his teammates with the ball in an open chance is well demonstrated by his long-standing excellent results in the metric of expected assists. In 2022/23, only Kingsley Coman and Dani Olmo were better than him, a year earlier he only let Serge Gnabry in front of him and it was similar the year before last when he was third behind Leroy Sane and the aforementioned Coman.
Thanks to his speed and excellent ball management, Diaby is often able to get into the opposition's penalty area, from where he sends accurate balls to his teammates in the space around the penalty spot. There, Aston Villa have a reliable goalscorer in Watkins, who is also great at taking diagonal passes from the midfield, a type of pass that suits Diaby. Bailey, on the other hand, has often failed in this activity.
Compared to Leverkusen, Aston Villa's plan in the final third of the pitch revolves much more around centres and penetrating passes from deep. Diaby doesn't get to these very often due to his tendency to move his forays close to the penalty area, but his intelligence should allow him to gradually adapt to the new style of play.
Moreover, during his Bundesliga career he has maintained an average of 0.21 expected goals (excluding penalties) per game and is among the top 30% of players at his position in this metric. He is also a very good finisher in a large sample of minutes played. While he will have to adapt to a better level of defenders in the Premier League, he should gradually start scoring goals.
A goalkeeper who excels with his feet
A major change in the goalkeeping position has taken place in the Sparta Prague squad. Although it was assumed that the guest appearance of last year's number one player Matěj Kovář from Manchester would be a matter of at least two seasons, his (at least near) future will not be linked to the team from Letna. Even though Vojtěch Vorel has always performed very well in the FORTUNA:LIGA, the management decided to reach for Vindahl, who is coming from Alkmaar in the Netherlands on loan with an option for a permanent transfer.
Vindahl got his first glimpse of big football in the jersey of Danish side Nordsjaelland. He made his first start for the local senior team in the spring of 2019, but it wasn't until the 2020/21 season that he started to play the role of number one. If the average league goalkeeper faced identical shots as him, he would have scored five more goals. On top of that, his team faced eight penalties, of which he managed to catch three.
He impressed with his performances at Alkmaar, where he immediately took his place between the three sticks upon his arrival and ended up playing 3,490 league minutes. However, his numbers immediately went down sharply. In the Eredivisie, he was one of the worst goalkeepers at catching shots directed at him from inside the sixteen, and he ended the season with an unflattering statistic of 10 goals scored above the expected figure. Only one other goalkeeper was worse in this respect.
However, an important part of the goalkeeper's contribution to the team is also his footwork. And Vindahl's was very decent. He scored above average in the metric assessing the extent to which his passes increased Alkmaar's chances of scoring.
He often set up the action with long passes of 30 yards or more and managed to get the ball into the areas that subsequently created dangerous scoring opportunities. This was also the case last season, during which he played 1372 minutes on loan at Nürnberg in the second league and was a great asset to the team in the midfield.
What remained the same was his catching, in which he was again one of the worst players in the competition. It should be noted, however, that great inconsistency in performance is not uncommon even among very good goalkeepers, even in the top five leagues in the world. This is a position where the mental state of the player plays a huge role. In any case, Vindahl has a decent foundation in footwork and at 25 years old still has a substantial part of his professional career ahead of him.
