Last weekend’s game against Chelsea confirmed Luna’s worst fears. He is now Aston Villa’s third choice left-back! Luna joined Aston Villa from Sevilla in the summer of 2013 for £1.5 million pounds. At first Luna’s Villa career appeared to be very promising, he scored against Arsenal and put in a few good performances. But now, it’s really difficult to praise Luna because he’s been so poor. Whenever he has played, opponents would often target the left side of defence as Villa’s weakness. Despite his performances, his ‘Whoscored’ rating isn’t too bad, he’s in 11th place with an average rating of 6.7.
Yesterday, Luna turned 23 years of age and according to reports in Spain, if Aston Villa can secure the permanent signing of Ryan Bertrand (Mourinho recently commented on his desire to keep Bertrand) then it looks likely that Luna could return to Spain in the summer. Joe Bennett has improved this season and it appears as though he is a better prospect then Luna. Then again, if Villa did sign Bertrand I’m sure Lambert would sell either Luna or Bennett to the first buyer.
Still, it could be argued that Luna hasn’t quite adapted to the Premier League and perhaps he’ll do better next season. We’ve seen El Ahmadi and Vlaar both improve their performances for Aston Villa after a season in the Premier League. It could be the same story with Luna.
glad to see Bennett showed his true form at the weekend but if it had been Luna,Bertrand,or Stevens, we would of had a five star performance from that position because for one of the few times this season the midfield clicked which has been the main cause of our inconsistency this season.now all you people that have played Sunday league football in defence and the opposition attack and you have acres of space in front of you with two or three players coming at you and you have to make a decision on who to challenge and at the last minute they switch to an unmarked player making you look a knob, is exactly the position our defence has been in for a few seasons now they specifically target the left hand side because of the gap between full back and central defender(baker) is huge and they are not backing each other up Bertrand will not be drawn as easily as Luna and Bennett but the latter two are better in attack and support the midfield which is great when the midfield are on form. if we are going to play attacking full backs a shit hot DM is a must
How about this as a left field idea. But bennet or Luna as a left midfield with Bertrand as left bk. best if both worlds then.
That’s how they played at Cardiff and Bennett has a few decent runs and crosses. I think given time to adapt to the premiership and to gain experience he could be a good wing back or even play wide left. After all he came in last year new to the league, in a struggling team in a defence that changed every week. He made some rash challenges and got found out for position which shook confidence – I reckon we need to stick with him.
Remember barry started as a left bk/centre half then became a left mid/cm in later years. I also think there is a case for maybe Vlaar playing a DM role when okore is fit and have baker alongside him.
Unless Okore grows into a leader, Vlaar’s gotta play next to Baker. Vlaar could probably play as a DM but would rather we just sign a DM… Oh wait, we have one, that’s not actually played as a DM. Kinda amazing, no?
there’s a chance of that but you need someone with both feet that can control the ten yards in front of the defence aka Mortimer, Barry, to a certain amount and what Petrov was doing which will stop the defender being pulled out of position
also big Ron was being pulled all over the shop last season until sylla was brought in which enabled the back four to hold their shape
Totally agreed.
Vlaar was pulled all over the place, covering the kids and lack of mids. Many of us saw it.
Oohah, apart, of course, but no surprise there.
Hey that’s not fair I always said Vlaar was world class:-)
Also remember you saying Benteke’s gonna be the best striker we’ll ever have and he’ll retire here.
The good news is if either Bennet or Luna are sold it will not have cost us much money where as Hutton for example has.
think we’ve gotta give him till next season, as has been said he started well but tailed off although that left side has been under pressure all season, teams playing us target that side and have done for 2/3 seasons now, I don’t think he was getting too much help either when he was playing.
we’ve seen how vlarr and kea have improved after difficult 1st seasons, hell in the summer id have not blinked an eye if we’d have got rid of either of em but they’ve proved much, much better this season. it cant be underestimated the difficulty in not only adapting to the pace of the PL and the quality when compared to the 2 horse race in spain along with settling into a new country and culture.