Aston Villa and Chelsea have reached an agreement for Alejandro Garnacho. This deal consists of a loan with a conditional obligation to buy. Is he a perfect replacement for the departed Rodgers or will he be benched all season?

The situation

    After the departure of Morgan Rodgers, Aston Villa have wasted no time in finding his replacement, Alejandro Garnacho. The deal consists of a loan with a conditional obligation to buy for around 50 million Euros if he makes 10 appearances. The transfers of Rodgers and Garnacho is essentially just a player swap between Aston Villa and Chelsea. However, the questions looms on if Garnacho is the right fit for Aston Villa and if he will end up like Harvey Elliot if he isn't favoured by Unai Emery.

What will Garnacho bring to The Villa?

    Garnacho will help Aston Villa in many ways, firstly, he is a dynamic touchline hugging winger, who injects explosive pace and natural width into attacks. He operates as a traditional winger who dosen't really cut into midfield like Morgan Rodgers did. By holding his position out wide, it stretches low blocks and allows for more space for other players to run into. Additionally, his tendency to drive into the box compliments Ollie Watkins' intelligent box movement. Seeing as Watkins drags defenders out of position, this the allows for Garnacho to have more space to run into. His high passing accuracy of 91% means that he can deliver good balls into the box and put balls into strikers. This also allows for him to keep the ball and drive forward. His constant trickery in 1v1 situations make him fit in well in Emery's system. Back to his passing, Emery likes his wingers to make late runs into the box and likes cutbacks. His 91% passing accuracy will allow for even better chances created. Additionally, if the ball if is on the opposite flank, he can make back post runs, which is just what Emery wants in his wingers. Finally, he has the ability to beat his man and get shots on goal.

The issues

    Garnacho has some issues in his game, but also his career. Most notably, he is known to have issues with his attitude. He has been called out as "Arrogent" and "Self Centred" by people close to him. He has been seen clashing with managers, especially Ruben Amorim at Manchester United. Even at Chelsea, he was seen rolling his eyes at staff and throwing his arms in the air. What is seen as one of the worst features of him is the childish tunnel vision he is seen refusing to pass to teammates in better positions than him. This is a major red flag in his move as in sport  attitude is more than ability and his petulant, selfish attitude won't go well at Villa and may lead to him being frozen out like at Chelsea. At Villa, Unai Emery likes his wingers to be more on the inside and regularly drift inside. Garnacho dosen't play like that and is a touchline hugging winger who is highly predictable. This will either force Unai Emery to change his whole attacking style or force Garnacho to play in a way he dosen't want to. This could lead to conflict and him being dropped from the team. Another tactical issue is his lack of defensive input. This may result in Garnacho struggling to adapt to Emery's high pressing blueprint that forces forwards to track back often.

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The 10 game issue

    Last season, Aston Villa signed Harvey Elliot on loan from Liverpool and this was a very similar loan with a performance based obligation of 10 games and he was to sign for £35m pounds if he played 10 plus games. By October, Elliot was frozen out of the Villa squad primarily due to costs but also another part of the issues was the playing style due to the fact that the two had completely different footballing philosophies. The Garnacho deal is practically the same as the Elliot deal and there is a chance of this happening to Garnacho. This is because of the blatant attitude issue but also the completely different approach to playing. Aston Villa are still navigating a very difficult FFP(Financial Fair Play) situation and if Garnacho is clearly not a good fit, they will not go ahead in playing him. If this happens this will mean a year of his career is wasted and will go back to Chelsea where he has already fallen out of favour with Xabi Alonso.

Is he the right choice for Aston Villa?

    No, Alejandro Garnacho will not be a good fit at Aston Villa. His attitude is a huge problem as Aston Villa, or anywhere, dosen't want a self centred person on their team. However, manager, Unai Emery, has been known to deal with with big egos and will be a helping hand in hopefully revitalising Garnacho. On top of that, he has contrasting styles with the manager as he is a wide winger, whereas Emery likes his wingers to drift centrally. However, his 1v1 dribbling and wide positioning allows for more space for shots and cutbacks. Additionally, paired with clever running, low blocks can be broken more easily.

Final Words