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Allrounder pleased with his own progress as a batter and with the new players coming through

Deivarayan Muthu20-Jan-20231:37

Santner on the challenges of bowling to Gill

In the absence of Jimmy Neesham, who is currently with Pretoria Capitals for the SA20, and Colin de Grandhomme, who has retired from international cricket altogether to become a free agent, New Zealand have turned to their spin-bowling allrounders for depth. Both Michael Bracewell and Mitchell Santner fired with the bat in the first ODI in Hyderabad, countering an early collapse with a 162-run partnership for the seventh wicket. They got together when New Zealand were 131 for 6 in a chase of 350 and helped take their side to within two sixes of levelling India’s score.Bracewell’s big-hitting was so clean that it has attracted the attention of IPL insiders as well. As for Santner, he has improved his own power, which has been on display in Hyderabad, Karachi and Queenstown over the past month. Smashing more sixes in the nets – he repeatedly pumped his team-mates over the straight boundary in Raipur – and batting up the order for Northern Districts in the Super Smash have helped Santner add more muscle to his game.LIVE in the UK and USA

You can watch the second ODI between India and New Zealand LIVE on ESPN Player in the UK and on ESPN+ in the USA.

“At No. 7 or 8, you come in from ball one and have to hit,” Santner said at the pre-match press conference. “You want to prepare to play and train for your role and that’s what I do. In the nets, [I] try to hit some sixes.”I guess being an allrounder you need to be able to chip in with both, and I guess in the last year or so, getting more opportunity to bat has helped. It can be quite challenging at times if you are down the bottom with three-four overs left, but getting more of an opportunity for ND (Northern Districts) has been helpful as well. I guess if I can chip in with some runs at the end, it’s good for the team.”Santner is also prepared to work his way into an innings and be a bit more calculative, which he did during in the early stages on Wednesday. “The other night when you have more time to bat, you can get into your innings a little bit. I guess with that role you can come in with 15 overs left or come in with two overs left. So, you have to be able to do both.”Mitchell Santner scored 57 off 45 deliveries in Hyderabad•Associated PressSantner and Bracewell are giving New Zealand more options with the ball. Both can operate in the powerplay as well as in the middle overs. If Ish Sodhi recovers sufficiently from an ankle injury sustained during the third ODI in Karachi, the legspinner could potentially replace one of the quicks to form a three-man spin attack on what might be spin-friendly pitch in Raipur. Outside of the current squad, New Zealand have left-arm fingerspinner Rachin Ravindra and left-arm wristspinner Michael Rippon on the fringes. They seem well stocked to deal with a World Cup in India.”Yeah, it’s a nice thing to have – the depth of three spinners in the squad is very handy,” Santner said. “We don’t know what the wicket is going to play like, but if it does spin, then we have options and if it doesn’t, we’ve got Beast [Bracewell] who can bat extremely well and obviously the other night…Having the two allrounders as fingerspinners adds depth to both bowling and batting.”With Tim Southee resting ahead of the home Tests against England and Trent Boult having handed back his national contract to become a freelancer, New Zealand are using this tour to identify their second line of quicks and tick a few other boxes. At the same time, they are focussed on winning the next two ODIs to clinch the series.Related

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Santner to lead New Zealand's T20I squad in India

“Having a World Cup and being able to play a series is pretty important, but we know it’s extremely hard to win here [in India],” Santner said. “That is what we want to do – we want to be able to win this series and the T20 series and then we want to look at some combinations going forward and see what the wickets do. We know come World Cup time, the wickets could be flat, like we saw in the first ODI, so I guess that is in the back of the mind but at the forefront, it’s try to win the series.”The conditions in Raipur could be an unknown quantity – Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh Stadium is set to host its first international match on Saturday – but the size of the ground gives spinners a chance. At the Rajiv Gandhi stadium, Santner and Bracewell had to be careful about bowling too full because the straight boundaries were rather small. Here, they won’t have to be so fussy.”Nobody really knows what it’s going to be like tomorrow,” Santner said. “I guess you try and weigh up whether the dew is really going to be much of a factor second innings versus obviously put runs on the board. But I guess we have to turn up tomorrow and see what the wicket looks like. It [The pitch] was under cover today, and the nets was pretty good. Probably a bit more bounce in Hyderabad and let’s hope it spins.”If it does spin, Santner, Bracewell and perhaps Sodhi will be looking to hush India’s batting superstars and a sellout Raipur crowd.

We take a look at how six players who were recently released by their franchises did in the T20 tournament

Shashank Kishore01-Feb-2021Karun Nair
Four years ago, he was India’s second triple centurion in Tests. Since then, his career has nosedived to the extent that there are murmurs over his place even in the Karnataka setup. At IPL 2020, he featured in just three games for the Kings XI Punjab, who had splurged good money for him in 2019. While Nair returned to lead Karnataka – for whom he last made a century in any format back in 2017-18 – six innings in various positions at SMA 2020-21 yielded just 93 runs. There is quality for sure, but the question is whether he can rejuvenate a career that is at a crossroads.Kedar Jadhav
Once considered the ultimate utility cricketer, Jadhav was let go by the Chennai Super Kings after a poor IPL 2020 in which he made only 62 runs in five innings, his struggles to up the pace in the middle overs all too evident. With MS Dhoni not using him as a go-to bowler anymore, Jadhav’s auction price of INR 7.8 crore may have gone against him. At SMA 2020-21, his team, Maharashtra, finished bottom of their group, managing just one win in five games. Jadhav, though, was among their brighter spots, making 193 runs in five innings at a strike rate of 132. His best, an unbeaten 45-ball 84 against Chhattisgarh in a chase of 192, took them to their only win of the competition.Shivam Dube
Not too long ago, Dube was Hardik Pandya’s like-for-like replacement, but impactful performances have been few and far between. He last played for India in February 2020. At the IPL, he was hardly used as a bowler and couldn’t quite deliver the finishing kick with the bat. Having been signed for INR 5 crore, he has now been released by the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Among the senior players for Mumbai in a poor SMA 2020-21, where they lost all their five games, Dube top-scored with 161 runs in five innings, striking at 138.79; the numbers better than other established batsmen like Suryakumar Yadav, Aditya Tare, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sarfaraz Khan. With the ball, he conceded runs at an economy of 7.50 in the 14 overs he delivered.K Gowtham is in search of a fourth IPL franchise after being released by Kings XI Punjab•BCCIK Gowtham
At INR 6.2 crore, Gowtham was among the more expensive Indian picks at the previous auction but one poor season with the Kings XI later, he is in search of a fourth franchise. Between being released and being back in the auction pool, Gowtham was called in as a reserve bowler for the Indian Test team for the home series against England. Prior to that, he featured in four SMA games for Karnataka, picking up four wickets with his fastish offspinners. His handy hitting lower down the order could yet make him a viable option for several franchises.Piyush Chawla
Two-time IPL winner and the third-highest wicket-taker in the tournament’s history, Chawla could be on the lookout for a fourth IPL team, unless the Super Kings buy him back for a portion of his INR 6.75 crore price tag. He had a poor first season with the Super Kings, going at an economy of 9.09 and picking up just six wickets in seven matches. While Chawla last played for India in 2012, he’s continued to be a regular in domestic cricket. A staple for Gujarat for the last three seasons, he picked up five wickets in as many matches with his legspin at an economy of 6.30 at SMA 2020-21.Mohit Sharma
One of Dhoni’s trump cards during India’s run to the semi-finals of the 2015 World Cup, Sharma has been laid low by poor form and injuries since then. While he hasn’t been an IPL regular, his appearances for Haryana in domestic cricket have dwindled too. He last featured in a competitive game 18 months prior to his lone appearance in IPL 2020. That one game for the Delhi Capitals, who signed him for INR 50 lakh, turned out to be uneventful – he went for 45 in four overs. The emergence of a gun pace attack consigned him to the bench after that. His form at SMA 2020-21 wasn’t inspiring either, his two wickets in six games coming at an economy of 8.33 and average of 100.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s career could have been markedly different, with it being revealed that Chelsea passed on the chance to sign the Portuguese forward for just €3.5 million prior to Manchester United offering him a route to superstardom. Barry Silkman claims to have agreed a deal with Jorge Mendes that would have delivered CR7 to Stamford Bridge rather than Old Trafford.

• Near misses: Notable transfers slip the net

  Near misses on the transfer front are common in modern football, with there no telling what players of obvious potential will go on to become. While they can often illuminate the youth ranks, or enjoy a bright start to their senior careers, longevity can never be guaranteed.

  With that in mind, clubs around the world boast tales of near misses and what could have been. Chelsea fall into that camp, with questions probably still being asked in west London of how they allowed Ronaldo to slip the net.

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• Getty
  

  Explained: How Chelsea missed out on Ronaldo transfer

  He was a fleet-footed winger on Sporting’s books when former player turned agent Silkman attempted to broker a deal with the Blues in 2003. His pleas fell on deaf ears, with Ronaldo – who is now a five-time Ballon d’Or winner and still going strong at 40 years of age – ultimately making his way to Manchester a matter of weeks later.

  Silkman – who represented the likes of Wimbledon, Manchester City and Leyton Orient in his playing days – has told of one particular agreement that he failed to get over the line: “I did a deal with [Ronaldo’s agent] Jorge Mendes. But Chelsea said no. Cristiano Ronaldo was €3.5m and the deal was everything over that was split 50-50 with the club. He played against Man United pre-season, ruined them and straight after the game they paid €11.5m and Jorge must have stuck four million in his pocket. Good luck to him but I was gutted!”

  Silkman went on to say of Ronaldo, who continues to illuminate the global game with Al-Nassr and Portugal: “If Cristiano Ronaldo was coming into the game today, he would do well to get signed by Barnsley because they’d be saying to him ‘what are you doing? All these stepovers and tricks and flicks? Pass the ball!’

  “Coaches don’t want teams to make a mistake. I’ve watched a lot of young coaches. To say it’s crap is an understatement. What you hear is, ‘pass, pass, pass’. You never hear someone say, ‘Take him on, drop the shoulder, do a trick’.”

• Ronaldo morphed from show pony to superstar striker

  United phased tricks out of Ronaldo’s game during his time at Old Trafford, with his transformation into a free-scoring, Golden Ball-winning frontman being completed at the so-called ‘Theatre of Dreams’.

  Chelsea’s loss was most definitely the Red Devils’ gain, with Ronaldo going on to make history and rewrite the record books with United, Real Madrid and Juventus. He is expected to grace another World Cup next summer and is giving little thought to retirement.

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  Henry at West Ham! What could have been

  Discussing some other big names that he almost took down a different path to the one that made them famous, Silkman told : “Thierry Henry. Could have got him for £500,000 when he was a kid at Monaco as it was only compensation. I tried to get Harry [Redknapp] to buy him at West Ham and he scored a hat-trick in the game and Harry was convinced something had to be wrong with him. He stayed, signed a contract, went to Juventus and they messed up and played him on the left wing. And then went to Arsenal.”

  He added on another Ballon d’Or winner who did pass through Chelsea and City after becoming a global superstar with AC Milan: “Then there was George Weah. I was bringing him on a free. No one wanted him. Five different clubs. They also said 'he can’t be any good if he’s free'.”

  Chelsea will be cursing their luck at having passed on Ronaldo. He has worked with fellow countryman Jose Mourinho over the course of his remarkable career, during their time together in Madrid, but they could have chased down Premier League titles together from 2004 had the Blues listened to Silkman’s advice.

The England opener said that Ben Stokes had been training like a “beast” since arriving in Perth

ESPNcricinfo staff11-Nov-20257:23

Will Joe Root finally score his first hundred in Australia?

Ben Duckett believes England will start the Ashes series without much “baggage” and said that the team’s aggressive approach to Test cricket is evolving beyond what has sometimes been perceived as reckless.Duckett is one of 11 players in England’s squad who have yet to play Test cricket in Australia while the average age is 28 compared to the home side’s 33. The players have been greeted in Perth by a series of comical headlines from the local newspaper but Duckett said they have been warmly welcomed.Related

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“This group we’ve got, I actually saw the other day I’m the fourth oldest, which was tough to see,” Duckett told the podcast. “So we’ve got quite a fresh group coming here where there’s not a lot of baggage, which I think will help us.”Since his Test recall in 2022, Duckett is the leading run-scorer among openers. In the 2023 Ashes he made 321 runs at 35.66. “I’m looking forward to the challenge,” he said. “You know how tough it is for touring sides coming over here. I’m not expecting or setting myself any targets. I know I’m opening the batting against probably the best bowling attack in the world in their home conditions.”For the first Test, at least, that attack will be missing Pat Cummins as he continues to recover from a lumbar stress injury. There remains hope he will be available for the second Test and went through another solid workout at the SCG on Tuesday.Ben Duckett will have a vital role to play at the top of the order•Getty Images”You want to play against the best and you don’t want to have guys like that missing out in series like this,” Duckett said. “But on the flip side, I’m an opening batter and he’s probably one of the best bowlers in the world. So yeah, quietly, I hope it’s not too bad but obviously any game where he’s not playing is an advantage for us.”Much of the pre-series narrative is around how Bazball will go in Australian conditions, but Duckett said that both individually and collectively their approach was becoming more nuanced.”I think now it’s definitely about reading moments,” he said. “[Brendon McCullum] will come up to me and say, now you’re a better player than just getting 40 off 30 and getting us off to a good start.”There’s moments as an opening batsman, for example, it could be at Perth in a few weeks where we’ve got five overs to see at the end of the day. And I did it against India last summer where actually just get through it. I don’t care how many runs you’ve got, just be there in the morning.”I think that’s where we’re trying to go as a team now, it’s not just being this entertaining, reckless at times, side. And it’s something that I’ve got frustrated with myself in the past, where I might have got 80 off 60 and it looks great and stuff, but they’re going to put my side in a good position. So it’s realising moments and doing that and then kicking on and getting a big score. And I think that’s where we’re really wanting to go as a side now.”Duckett termed captain Ben Stokes “probably the most important man” in the team and had been taken aback by the intensity of his training. “I can only say we’ve been out here for a few days and he’s been in beast mode,” he said. “He has been running, bowling two spells, batting for two hours. The way he trains and stuff these days is something that I’ve never seen before.”He’s obviously probably the most important man in this side when he’s bowling. So hopefully he stays fit for all five tests and he’s bowling in all of them because he’s crucial for us.”

England’s senior batter prepares to return to ODI action, but talk of his technique for Australia’s pitches dominates

Cameron Ponsonby25-Oct-2025

Joe Root begins a seminal winter with a strong run of form under his belt•Alex Davidson/Getty Images

Little known fact. Joe Root has never made a hundred in Australia.It will be the sub-genre of the summer. A much anticipated Ashes series, in which one of the greats of the game has the chance to complete a caveat-free career. An away win, and a full set of centuries in every Test-hosting nation he has played. Except for Bangladesh and the UAE. They don’t rate him in Dhaka.Matthew Hayden confidently made the claim that if Root didn’t end the Aussie summer with a Test ton, he’d strip nude to run around the MCG. But others aren’t so sure.”Wrists limper than a French handshake,” former Aussie legspinner and broadcaster Kerry O’Keeffe said on Fox Sports. “It doesn’t work in Australia.””The first two Tests are huge for Joe Root. They’re nickers’ Tests. Perth? They nick for fun there. And Brisbane day-night? Everyone nicks in Bris.”Joe Root is a nicker. When he was last here, in his first eight innings he nicked off. Australia knows this. What will be his defensive set-up? I’m very bearish about Joe Root.”O’Keeffe’s argument is that Root previously chose to stay inside the ball, as he was of the belief they wouldn’t target him with the offcutter, only for a different weakness to appear, that meant he was playing away from his body.It is a rare technical examination of a player who has averaged 58.00 since Brendon McCullum took over, but a prescient one given Australia’s recent tendency to produce pitches that favour their seam bowlers. Since the start of the 2021-22 Ashes, top-seven batters in Australia have averaged 30.22 per dismissal, compared to 38.14 in the four-year cycle before that. By contrast, England’s pitches have gone the other way. The average in the four years before McCullum’s appointment was 30.90; it has since been 38.94.”England play pretty well on the flatter wickets, the way they play,” Steve Smith said recently. “So, if there’s a bit in it like there has been the last three or four years, with our bowling attack, it certainly makes things a lot more difficult for their batters.”Nevertheless, Root sees no need to tamper with his technique. Arriving in New Zealand ahead of England’s three-match ODI series, it will be the final three hits he has before lining up against Australia in Perth.”A lot of that prep’s already started back home,” Root said, explaining how he’s balancing his preparation for an ODI series today with the carrot of the Ashes starting tomorrow.”I think how I’d prepare now is different to how I would have done 10 years ago. A lot more mental. I’ve clearly played against a lot of their guys now. Know how they operate, know what they’re likely to try to bring to the series.”I used to be very technical in how I prepared. I’d want to make sure that everything felt lined up and my feet were in the right place, my head was in the right place, whereas now I’m a little bit more concerned about how I’m looking at the game, how I’m going to approach different situations, whether that be the surface, whether that be different bowler types, different angles, and being able to manage those different angles when they come wide of the crease. Things like that.”Related

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This will be Root’s fourth Ashes tour. His individual record is respectable, averaging 35.68, but not befitting of a player of his own calibre. England’s record across that time, however, is diabolical: 15 matches, 13 defeats, two draws, zero wins.”They’re all different,” Root said of how the build-up to this series has compared to previous tours. “I look at it at this time and I’m in a completely different stage of my career. I’m no longer captain, I’m playing some really good cricket, and so are we. We’re playing in a really exciting way. We’ve got a great group of players that we can go there and hit them with different tools than we’ve had on previous tours, so when you look at it like that, it’s a really exciting prospect.”Clearly, Australia are really good in their own conditions, with a great record at home, especially against us, but that’s the exciting bit right? There’s an opportunity there to do something a bit different and hopefully achieve something really special.”Despite the ODI World Cup being two years away, these three matches against New Zealand are not without complete jeopardy. England are currently ranked eighth in the world after winning only eight of their last 23 fixtures. Failure to automatically qualify for the World Cup remains unlikely, but only if they nip in the bud a continued slide in the format.”I don’t think that’s necessarily anyone’s fault of what happened before,” Root said of the ODI group’s relative stability under Brook and McCullum, compared to previous leadership.”You look at the number of crossovers of Test series and one-dayers, it was physically impossible to get there. There was a one-day series against the Netherlands when we were playing a Test match at Old Trafford. You think how can that happen?”New Zealand themselves haven’t played an ODI since April, but remain ranked third in the world. The weighting of points in the ICC rankings is such that it presents a major opportunity for England to win some matches, and lift themselves away from any potential future problems.”I don’t think it’s arrogant to say you look at the quality that’s within our squad, and we’re not an eighth-in-the-world team,” Root said. “We should be competing and jostling for that top spot.”New Zealand are a very good team and if you try to sleepwalk into it or you’re preoccupied with what’s around the corner, then they’ll hurt us really badly. We want to keep making strides under Brooky after what was a difficult Champions Trophy. This is a great opportunity to build on what we started over the summer.”

Aston Villa defender Matty Cash has been hailed for his incredible defensive form after shutting down Bournemouth winger

Antoine Semenyo on Sunday.

Villa cruised to a fourth straight home Premier League victory, brushing Bournemouth aside 4-0 at Villa Park. Unai Emery’s side had only scored nine goals in the league coming into the match but put their goalscoring woes to bed to dispatch Andoni Iraola’s below-par Cherries with ease.

Emiliano Buendia’s sublime free-kick put them on track for a fifth win from six before Amadou Onana’s cracker from range doubled their lead. Villa had to withstand a spell of Bournemouth pressure but Emiliano Martinez produced a string of fine saves to keep their lead intact, including a one-handed stop to deny Semenyo from the penalty spot after Morgan Rogers handled the ball.

Villa then made the match safe as substitutes Ross Barkley and Donyell Malen struck to wrap up victory and deliver a first four-goal haul of the campaign. During the game, though he didn’t get onto the scoresheet, one Villa player had a stellar performance.

Cash shone in dominant win over Bournemouth

Writing on X, Jacob Tanswell of The Athletic was full of praise for Cash, touching on his contributions over the 2025/26 season which rank him amongst the best defenders in the English top flight.

Cash, along with his Villa teammates, endured a slow start to the current campaign, far from a norm under Emery’s tenure at Villa Park. Picking up their first win of the season only in late September against Bologna, Villa have since lost just two of their last 10 matches, a run to which Cash has been a major contributor.

Interceptions per Game

0.8

Tackles per Game

1.6

Clearances per Game

2.8

Blocked Shots per Game

0.7

Errors Leading to Goals

0

(All stats are from SofaScore)

In what has been a thunderous start to the season for Bournemouth, Semenyo has shone as one of the most exciting attacking talents in the Premier League. As Tanswell noted, Cherries head coach Andoni Iraola wanted the Ghanian international to be charging at Lucas Digne rather than Cash, given his form.

Semenyo was limited to a quiet game in a thrashing win, with Cash maintaining the exceptional standards he has had across the campaign as Villa look to, once again, qualify for European football under Emery.

Villa exploring deal for exciting striker

Teenager gives glimpse of potential to leave Derbyshire winless in thriller

ECB Reporters Network supported by Rothesay 24-Aug-2025

Ben Mayes cuts through backward point•Getty Images

Teenager Ben Mayes gave a glimpse into the future with a match-winning 62 not out as Hampshire kept Metro Bank One-Day Cup men’s competition progression in their own hands.England Under-19 star Mayes, just 17, mesmerised with a catalogue of power, guile and switch hits for his second List A fifty.Mayes put on 111 in 72 balls with James Fuller (54 off 39) to take Hampshire to their fifth win in the competition, after fifties for Fletcha Middleton and Ben Brown.Derbyshire Falcons had been in control after posting 339 thanks to 98 for Caleb Jewell and 76 for Brooke Guest but they were eliminated from the One-Day Cup, and are still yet to win a List A match at Utilita Bowl in seven attempts.Hampshire now know a final fixture win over Gloucestershire will see them into the knockout stage for a fourth straight season.Mayes and Fuller had joined at 206 for five, with Derbyshire boasting a tight grip on the match.Ali Orr and competition top-scorer Nick Gubbins had leaned into the chase with relish, finding boundaries with glee to put on 55 in the first seven overs.But fell in quick succession to Aitchison. Gubbins ended a 257 run, across three innings, without being dismissed when he was bowled and two overs later Orr chopped on.Middleton and Brendon McMullen straightened things back out with a flowing 66-run stand, but McMullen tamely chipping back to Joe Hawkins, drew the Falcons back to favourites.Middleton and Brown both posted their first fifties in the One-Day Cup but neither kicked on but just as Hampshire’s hopes were fading, their wonderkid arrived at the crease.Having scored four off his first 11 balls, he got moving with a cut boundary before a ludicrous reverse paddle found his groove.Mayes scored a fifty on his debut against Glamorgan to stick his name in the limelight, and played off that with a masterclass of modern shot-making. His second half-century came in 39 balls.At the other end, Fuller used brute power to clear the ropes four times in his 38-ball fifty before he was caught and bowled by Hawkins and Felix Organ was bowled.Andrew Neal took out the jitters by middling through midwicket as the hosts took the four points with five balls to spare.Derbyshire were given the first go on a batting paradise, and despite Kyle Abbott’s miserly opening spell, found runs flowed easily throughout.Jewell was the sparkle in the innings as he lusciously and repeatedly drove through the covers during a 99-run stand with former Hampshire batter Harry Came.It was just the start of a series of bulky partnerships that underpinned the visitor’s hefty 339 – stands of 46, 44, 94 and 39 all delivered in quick time.Wickets came in decade intervals, and when they did it often required either magic, or batter error.In the former category, Came was sensationally caught at midwicket by Nick Gubbins and Matt Montgomery had his off-stump glanced by an Abbott pearler,Jewell looked on course for a second century in the competition as he strode through 400 runs in the One-Day Cup.But having been fluently batting at a strike-rate around 120, he slowed up with the milestone in sight, and on 98 he missed a paddle sweep and was bowled by Felix Organ.Brooke Guest and Martin Andersson regained the sweet-striking momentum, the latter with an excellent eighth List A fifty but for the eighth time he couldn’t convert.Any chance of Derbyshire flittering at the end of their innings was kyboshed by Amrit Singh Basra – with 90 runs coming off the last 10 overs. The SACA graduate who signed a two-year contract this week showed off his range of shots in a breathless 15-ball 34 – but it wasn’t to be enough.

Aston Villa were steadily getting back to their best across October.

Indeed, five straight wins had been collected by Unai Emery’s men, with three of those victories falling in October, before a trip to Dutch outfit Go Ahead Eagles fell on the calendar in the Europa League.

Yet, even with Evann Guessand netting after just four minutes had been played, the Eredivisie hosts would collect a surprise 2-1 win come full-time, as Emery and Co. cursed their luck away from Villa Park.

On another night, Villa might well have at least collected a share of the points. Unfortunately, though, Emiliano Buendia noticeably underperformed throughout, with a second-half missed penalty from the ex-Norwich City midfielder only further confirming that it was the hosts’ lucky day.

Buendia's poor showing against Go Ahead Eagles

Before his Europa League hiccup, Buendia had very much shown Emery why he was deserving of more consistent first-team minutes.

It was widely reported this summer that Buendia was on the brink of a move away from the West Midlands, with his future at the club still remaining uncertain if Villa need to cash in on an asset here and there to satisfy PSR troubles.

Despite all this distracting chatter, Buendia had managed to let his football do the talking as of late, with a standout haul of three goals and an assist from 11 appearances.

However, his poor day at the office in the Netherlands does have the potential to trouble his concrete starting position.

The out-of-sorts number ten would spurn another big chance away from missing that vital spot-kick, with Buendia also uncharacteristically sloppy with the ball at his feet, with possession surrendered a worrying 17 times.

Off the back of this individual showing, leaving a sour taste in Emery’s mouth, the Spaniard could look to alternate options in the number ten spot when Premier League action returns, with Morgan Rogers an easy fix here.

He might not be afforded a spot down the left wing, either, with Guessand scoring from this spot on the pitch against Melvin Boel’s hosts, as the ex-OGC Nice forward was in the right place, at the right time, to poke home a rebound.

Emery will want all of his attackers to be as instinctive as the Ivorian when Manchester City come to town next, with this other notable Villa first-teamer fearful of his starting spot subsequently, after another quiet game passed him by mid-week.

Emery must axe Villa star who is "off it"

The former Arsenal boss isn’t blessed with plentiful options in the centre-forward department anymore, with super sub Jhon Duran now plying his trade in the Saudi Pro League, after once being seen as an ideal second-in-command figure.

This has ramped up the pressure on Ollie Watkins’ shoulders, arguably, with his forgettable season so far displaying a striker in clear decline, with talkSPORT’s Troy Deeney even calling out the England international as being way “off it” back in September, when his goal output had already begun to disastrously dry up.

Games played

12

Minutes played

822

Goals scored

1

Assists

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Since this scathing assessment from the former Watford centre-forward, Watkins has only gone on to pick up an unsatisfactory one strike for the Villans from 12 matches, with Emery clearly losing patience with his usual reliable starter when benching him last time out in the Premier League against Tottenham Hotspur.

Villa didn’t look lost without their 88-goal man leading the line, either, with ex-Borussia Dortmund man Donyell Malen filling in as the main marksman somewhat competently, as the likes of the aforementioned Rogers and Buendia stole the show with goals from the midfield areas.

Watkins didn’t exactly bang the door down to reclaim his top-flight starting spot with his shoddy showing against Go Ahead Eagles, with what should have been a confidence-boosting night only sapping the 29-year-old’s belief even more, as three shots failed to find the back of the net from his minimal 17 touches of the ball.

Guessand might even be the face that Emery chooses to start up top against Pep Guardiola’s challengers, if he wants to experiment away from a goalless Malen, with eight goals actually collected by the versatile Ivorian from this position for Nice, as Watkins fears another spot warming the bench is going to come his way later today.

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ByDominic Lund Oct 24, 2025