Nakamba,EPL Signing of the Season?
English Premier League new kid on the block, Marvelous Nakamba of Aston Villa is definitely a man exceeding all expectations by punching above his weight in the heart of midfield for the Birmingham based club.
The midfielder is earning rare reviews and with each passing week is proving to be a bargain for an Aston Villa side whose main focus is premised on Premiership survival.
Nakamba is performing admirably well and if it weren’t for the Zimbabwean midfielder, Aston Villa attacking threat that saw them pummel five goals past a hapless Norwich City side would probably have not worked at all.
Marvelous Nakamba has made a compelling case for being Aston Villa’s signing of the season in the space of just four Premier League games and astonishingly the man just cost £7m for the Villans.
His job of shielding the back line and winning the ball allowing creative players more freedom to express themselves has stamped the flow of goals against Villa. But it’s coming at a cost. And the brunt of that cost is being borne by Nakamba.
That’s not to say, that Villa’s defensive midfielder is perfect, or maybe even above average but he is marvelously and diligently doing his job of averting any opposition attacking threats.
Such has been the huge impact of the workaholic defensive midfielder and with Premier League survival upmost somebody definitely needs to do the dirty work and when you are Premier League lightweights there’s an awful lot of dirty work and Nakamba is doing most of the mopping exercise.
Tackling is not just his job but his mission, with Nakamba showing little desire to move from his station just ahead of Mings and Engels; he is a comfort blanket that the Villa attackers are more than happy to keep on the bed at home.
The new all-action kid in town Nakamba already ranks third on the midfield tackle list (per 90) behind the Nigerian Wilfred Ndidi and Southampton’s Oriol Romeu.
“He was everywhere. You see him winning second balls and feeding us lads up the pitch,” said John McGinn happy to be the beneficiary of Nakamba’s selflessness.
By Gerald Dandah
