Understrength Villa lose to Real Sociedad in pre-season
- Published
This season will see a new version of Aston Villa under Unai Emery.
A 4-2 defeat by Real Sociedad on Tuesday will irritate their perfectionist head coach, but there is plenty of time for him to fine-tune the Europa League holders before the start of the new campaign.
With Brian Madjo, George Hemmings, Modou Cisse all likely to feature in the squad going forward there was still plenty to build on from the encounter against the La Liga side.
Trying to get Madjo and 19-year-old midfielder Hemmings to listen to instructions appeared difficult with neither player following through on Emery's desire for them to pull wider.
'Don't move' was the second-half instruction to Luka Lynch, which needed repeating several times before the 19-year-old winger stopped and then immediately collected the ball.
While Matty Cash, Tyrone Mings and Emi Buendia started against Sociedad, many of Emery's trusted lieutenants were missing.
Villa's World Cup cohort of Watkins, Ezri Konsa, John McGinn, Victor Lindelof, Emi Martinez and record buy Johan Manzambi did not feature, while France left-back Lucas Digne's move to Paris St-Germain has still to be rubber-stamped.
Only Cisse and Joao Gomes were the new arrivals in action and, even then, centre-back Cisse was signed from LASK last summer before spending the season with the Austrian side.
It was, at times, a hectic game too on Tuesday with Carlos Soler cancelling out Hemmings' opener, before Orri Oskarsson, Gorka Carrera and Inaki Ruperez netted for the La Liga side.
Winger Alejandro Garnacho was absent at Pallet-Track Bescot Stadium after his loan move from Chelsea last week, but the Argentine winger is expected to travel to Indonesia this week for Villa's tour.
The fact there are players still away - or returning from injury in Boubacar Kamara's case - means bodies are needed.
