Former player Carlton Palmer has claimed that he wouldn’t be surprised if Ezri Konza was let go from Aston Villa by Steven Gerrard in the summer.
Ezri Konza has featured regularly for Aston Villa this season having played 22 games in the Premier League whilst scoring twice, but it seems as though Gerrard has turned to Callum Chambers instead after his recent run of fine form, which has now seen Konza become an unused substitute in the club’s last two games.
Steven Gerrard has already shown his ruthlessness in the Premier League at Villa this season, with Matt Targett being shipped off to Newcastle and Lucas Digne coming in as his replacement.
And, it now looks as if Aston Villa fans could see a repeat as Carlton Palmer spoke to GIVEMESPORT and said that “it wouldn’t be a shock” if Konza was to be shown the door at Villa Park in the summer.
“It wouldn’t be a shock because you’ve seen what he did with the left full-back who went to Newcastle, Targett. He’s been consistently very, very good for Aston Villa, but Steven Gerrard has his ideas of how he wants to play the game of football, and what he wants his players to do,” Palmer said.
TIF Thoughts on Carlton Palmer’s comments…
Ezri Konza, who is valued at £22.5 million (as per Transfermarkt), is currently down at 17th in terms of average rating per game and his stats are a bit of a mixed bag. He averages one tackle per game, 0.5 interceptions per game, 2.7 clearances and 0.8 blocks, which is worse than Tyrone Mings in all of those areas.
As mentioned above, Callum Chambers has been favoured over Konza in the last two games and especially caught the eye against Leeds as he was awarded a 7.4 player rating by Sofascore, as well as grabbing a stunning goal.
Konza is still young at 24 so has plenty of developing still to do in comparison to the likes of Chambers and Mings who are at least four years older, so it would come as a bit of a surprise to see Gerrard ruthlessly get rid of the defender considering he’s not really done too much wrong.
And, the Villans aren’t blessed with a huge amount of central defenders either as Kortney Hause, Mings, Chambers and Konza are the only four who you would really associate with that position.