Jermaine Jenas is worried about Aston Villa’s defence following an underwhelming start to the new 2023-24 season.
Winning two of their first four Premier League games, with results including a 3-0 defeat against Liverpool as well as a 5-1 opening day demotion job away to Newcastle United, Unai Emery’s Villains sit 10th in the table.
And Jenas thinks a lot of the club’s woes can be sorted by improving their defence.
“I think their game plan defensively today was quite worrying,” the former pro said on Match of the Day 2.
“First and foremost mistakes like these and inviting pressure at Anfield, you’re asking for trouble when you start playing like this, you’ve got to be much more incisive. There’s certain things in football that never change. If you’re going to play the high line you have to have pressure on the ball. It’s just that’s set in stone in football because otherwise, you have players like Trent (Alexander-Arnold) who is one of the best passers in in the league.
“When they do press high at the pitch, it’s like they’re forcing the ball to the best passer of the ball on the pitch. You’re supposed to get like Matip or someone like that on the ball. It’s too easy because Villa are playing a high line and Liverpool are just picking just when they want to play the ball over the top and this is how simple it is. I mean, he could not have believed his luck, Trent. He must have just looked there and gone ‘hang on, you’re really gonna give me this kind of time.’ You have to pressure him, authorise or dictate the game. Unai Emery’s got some work to do.”