Aston Villa journalist Gregg Evans has been discussing full-back Ahmed Elmohamady after Villa’s 2-0 win over Crystal Palace at the weekend.
This comes after Evans recently made an appearance on The Athletic’s Villa-themed podcast 1874 to reflect on the victory at Villa Park on Sunday.
On the topic of Elmohamady, Evans shared his views on the Egyptian and his performance in the match. (11.24)
He said: “Everybody tells me he’s a reliable leader, somebody who you can basically always turn to and you know what you’re going to get from him. The one thing I noticed from him was every time somebody screamed for him to pass the ball to them, he did.
“Another thing I noticed was that right at the end in those last sort of five or 10 minutes when Villa were really trying to cling on and just dig in deep and keep Crystal Palace back, he was like the chief organiser, he was pulling the defence into different positions. He was getting quite rough and tough with [Wilfried] Zaha and not letting him have his own way. And I just thought now I can understand why so many managers rate him and why so many managers have played in regularly.”
Would you start Elmohamady in Villa's next match?
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The full-back first signed to the Birmingham club back in 2017 from Hull City for a fee of £990k. Since then, the 32-year-old has gone on to make 111 appearances for Villa in which he has managed to score four goals and provide 18 assists along the way (per Transfermarkt).
Elmohamady wasn’t actually meant to start the game against Palace but instead had to step in at the last minute to replace Kortney Hause who picked up an injury before the match.
However, for his performance in the game, Elmohamady earned himself a match rating of 7.31/10, making him Villa’s seventh-highest rated player in the match (per WhoScored).
TIF Thoughts…
It’s great to hear Evans sharing this information on Elmohamady and how he conducts himself on the pitch to help his team get through matches.
This shows that he is a useful player for Villa and a good member of their squad.