Aston Villa are back in action on Friday evening with a Premier League clash against Southampton at Villa Park.
Their previous outing saw Steven Gerrard’s side grab a 1-1 draw against Manchester City after Leon Bailey’s equaliser cancelled out Erling Haaland’s goal.
With Villa only winning one of their six opening league games of the campaign, their manager will undoubtedly be looking to secure a victory on this occasion.
In terms of what Gerrard’s starting XI could look like, one figure that we feel should be in the team to take on the Saints is Emi Buendia.
Despite appearing in all six of Villa’s league games, the Argentine has only started two of them but is also one of the five players to actually score a goal for the club so far this season.
In fact, with five attempts at goal to his name, three of them have been on target, leaving only Jacob Ramsey with a higher percentage for shots on target (66.7%) than Buendia (60%).
This shows how much of a goal threat he can be and why the £75k-per-week wizard could give his side a great chance of securing their second win of the season.
Also, with only John McGinn (53) making more key passes in the league last season than the 25-year-old (45), this highlights how effective he can be at setting up goalscoring opportunities as well, therefore making him a potentially terrifying prospect for Southampton’s defenders to come up against.
Bearing in mind how only three clubs have conceded more goals this season than the Saints (10), this could be a game where the Argentine really shows Gerrard that he should be a regular starter for the Villans rather than a bench player.
Praised by Rio Ferdinand for his “fabulous” attacking play against Everton earlier in this campaign, Buendia has proved how significant he can be for the team, which makes us feel that Villa would have a great chance of beating Southampton if he were to start the game.
