Presenter Dan Bardell has been sharing his praise for Aston Villa midfielder Marvelous Nakamba and his performance for the Birmingham club during their recent 1-0 win over Arsenal in the Premier League.
This comes after Bardell recently hosted the latest episode of The Villa View Podcast where he reflected on the win against Mikel Arteta’s side.
On the subject of Nakamba, who started the match at Villa Park against the north London club, Bardell had this to say about the midfield man and his place in Dean Smith’s squad. (8.42)
He said: “With Nakamba, he kind of goes under the radar, because if you think about the likes of Trezeguet, [Douglas] Luiz, [Ezri] Konsa, the players that came in last summer, the ones we talked about how they’ve now been here a while and they’ve made an improvement, Nakamba hasn’t really had a chance to show that too much so actually, he’s kind of flying under the radar a bit, but when he’s come in this season, to me, he’s looked better than he was last season as well so that could be another success and he’s a handy squad player.”
Villa signed Nakamba back in the 2019 summer transfer window from Club Brugge for an undisclosed fee.
TIF Thoughts on Dan Bardell’s comments on Nakamba…
So far this season, Nakamba has only made seven appearances for Villa in the Premier League, with this game against Arsenal being his third league start of the 2020/21 campaign.
Given how the 27-year-old earned himself a decent match rating of 7.13/10 for his performance against the Gunners, this shows that despite not playing in every league game for Villa so far this season, he still has the ability to come into the team when called upon and put in a good display for the team.
Do you think Nakamba is underrated?
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This, in our view, makes it understandable why Bardell thinks Nakamba is a “handy squad player” for Villa.