Douglas Luiz, our model ex-Citizen?

[DYWTBAU?]

Manchester City tomorrow night, got me thinking, who's the best player we've ever signed from them?
Dougie Luiz bucked the trend of them taking our best midfielders - Barry, Milner and another we won't mention. There is the ongoing rumour he might end up back there though of course because of that buyout clause. Is he our best ever signing from them? Been really impressive this season I think.
Ron Saunders' previous club before Villa was City but he was sacked by them before he joined us. Perhaps his first Villa signing, Frank Carrodus, is worth a shout though? Who else?

[Dave P]

Dunne and Given were ok.  Luiz will prove to be the best I'm sure.

[kippaxvilla2]

Not a player but Billy McBingo/Bungle.

[eamonn]

Do you want to bet against us tomorrow night ?

[Dave]

[CT]

Thought you could have posted the photo of him in that garish Land Rover he had with the pink wheel trims.

[LeeB]

Thought you could have posted the photo of him in that garish Land Rover he had with the pink wheel trims.

He's my all-time, no.1, Villa wanker/waster. Even taking into account the relegation season. Even Steve Hodge, and I was at that Norwich game.

[paul_e]

I don't like Ireland but I think there's a fair few mitigating circumstances in his case. From what I can make out he was pretty much forced out of Man City to us when he didn't want to leave. He was then signed by the board as a makeweight to ensure the Milner deal went through whilst we had no manager. When the manager did arrive he clearly didn't fancy him and Ireland instead of trying to force his way in just chilled and took his wage.

With that accounted for I don't think he was anything like as bad as McCormack who I'd put as our worst ever signing.

[chrisw1]

Thought you could have posted the photo of him in that garish Land Rover he had with the pink wheel trims.

He's my all-time, no.1, Villa wanker/waster. Even taking into account the relegation season. Even Steve Hodge, and I was at that Norwich game.

It's N'Zogbia for me.  So talented and yet so useless.

[DYWTBAU?]

Do you want to bet against us tomorrow night ?

Never, early lesson in Villa life.

[SheffieldVillain]

Now, it's from the Evening Mail so not the greatest of sources but this sounds promising. If they don't bid by June 5th, he's ours, all ours.

Douglas Luiz's form for Aston Villa this season has understandably earned him plenty of admirers none more so than the club who sold him.

Manchester City have been keeping tabs on Luiz's superb form amid claims that they could be willing to take him back to the Etihad Stadium.

They inserted a buy-back clause after selling him to Villa in 2019, but the fee at which City could sign was based on an escalating scale.

Had City wanted to sign him last summer it would have cost them £25m, while this year it has jumped up to £27.5m with the clause set to expire on June 5.

City are not expected to sign Luiz with our colleagues at the Manchester Evening news saying it remains unlikely he will be wearing blue next season despite his outstanding contribution to Villa's rise up the Premier League.

[Drummond]

From The Athletic

Stood next to Pep Guardiola was a buck-toothed boy with braces. He posed for pictures, smiling, and with the flash of a camera, the years of hardship in Brazil were quickly washed away.

Manchester City was Douglas Luiz’s new home; a dream fulfilled and the chance to play football on the biggest stage. Only it went on to be anything but simple and straightforward.

Luiz, the star Aston Villa midfielder, never made an appearance for City before his move to the Midlands in July 2019. He knew that moving to La Liga side Girona on loan for the first year of his contract was part of the deal that brought him over to England but work-permit complications when Guardiola wanted him to feature for his side 12 months later were unexpected.

Shipped back out to Spain as a consequence of the red tape, his reputation nose-dived. “In Girona, they had doubts about who I was,” Luiz said. “But at Aston Villa, I have been able to show who I really am.”

The 22-year-old has been so good since Project Restart that even Guardiola may be surprised when he sees a familiar face up close and personal this week, should Luiz feature after a week in isolation following a COVID-19 outbreak at the club.

In the last three outings between Villa and City, Luiz has been guilty of either trying too hard to impress or lacking the discipline that has made him such a hit in more recent times. But that Villa team he was a part of, the soft-touch pre-lockdown lot, are now a thing of the past.

Luiz is also no longer a player who wants to get forward and enjoy the glory as much as he previously did. He’s a disciplined, dogged enforcer who sits in front of the back four, moves the ball efficiently, and recognises that turning on the charm is only needed when the time is right.

Villa supporters will never be able to fully enjoy and embrace him until his long-term future is nailed down, though — and this is where it gets a little tricky.

City can still activate the two-year buy-back clause that was inserted into his contract when he signed for Villa. They have until June 5 to do so, and the transfer fee, The Athletic understands, can rise up to £27.5 million.

After that, he’s all Villa’s and not only will his value increase — if he continues on the same upwards curve of the recent times — but his importance to the team will rise, too.

Difficulties have followed Luiz in life. He grew up in Nova Holanda, a favela in Rio de Janeiro where he used to dodge bullets between rival gangs on his way to football training. Money was tight, so he would help out at the bakery that his father Edmilson owned. When he became a Kombi driver, little Douglas would also do what he could to assist.

Moving to City was the start of a bright future but only since playing regularly for Villa has he been able to feel fully secure. The plan in a post-COVID-19 world is to relocate his extended family to the UK. Luiz has been keen to give back ever since moving over to these shores.

Just like in Manchester, though, his start in Birmingham was not easy. Luiz struggled pre-lockdown and didn’t look capable of mixing it in the Premier League. Manager Dean Smith stood by his young man and believed that once he grasped a better understanding of the language and his new surroundings, he would thrive.

That time came at the back end of last season, as explained here. Since then, he’s become a better all-rounder. His positional sense has improved, he knows when to cover for others, and he’s making more tackles and interceptions.

Guardiola knew that Luiz had the potential to become this good as soon as he was signed for £10.7 million from Vasco da Gama in 2017.

When word reached the City boss that work-permit issues were preventing him from playing for the champions ahead of the 2018-19 season, he decided to send video footage to the Home Office explaining exactly how the midfielder would be important to his side in the months and years ahead.

Tite, Luiz’s national team coach, did the same. Both predicted Luiz would become a fully-fledged Brazil international — only, at that stage, he wasn’t, and certain criteria needed to be met for such a move to go through.

After the work permit setback and a subsequent second loan at Girona — a disappointment on the whole — City started to lose faith.

When Villa came calling, offering to pay £15 million to sign Luiz, it was an easy decision to sell. Profit on a player who hadn’t played, hadn’t fully settled into life in Europe and wasn’t deemed good enough to feature made sense, especially with the buy-back clause.

The question now is whether City will ever decide to re-sign Luiz and finally find a way to integrate this now-experienced Premier League and international midfielder into their squad. They have just a matter of months left to make up their mind. Of course, this time there would be no issues around a work permit given that Luiz would have had two full seasons in England’s top division and is now a regular in the national team.

Whether he’s good enough to do what Fernandinho has been doing for the last eight seasons or get anywhere near to replicating the style of Rodri is another matter.

Luiz’s style works wonderfully in Villa’s fluid 4-2-3-1 system but would it be so effective in City’s 4-3-3?

When you benchmark the Brazilian against City’s standard, the conclusion is that his game might be lacking from a possession and defensive perspective.

To highlight this, we can turn to Smarterscout, a site that gives detailed analytics on players all over the world, whose ratings you can think of a bit like the player ratings on FIFA computer games but powered by real data and advanced analytics. Smarterscout’s ratings show, for example, that Rodri’s tackle rating (83/99) far exceeds Luiz’s (18/99) as things stand.

Likewise, Luiz’s aerial win rate has improved from 44 per cent to 52 per cent since lockdown but Rodri remains far superior, with an aerial duel rating of 92/99 compared to Luiz (36/99).

Physicality is a large requirement to play in that role for City and although there’s little he can do about it, Luiz’s size means he may always have limitations.

Douglas Luiz, Aston Villa, smarterscout

Also, as we can see in the graphic above, although Luiz is active at driving with the ball for someone in his position, showing consistently strong carry and dribble volume, his ability to retain the ball is lacking, with his 48/99 rating this season dwarfed by Rodri’s 81/99 (as shown below).

Rodri, Manchester City

Perhaps the statistics would look different if each player were to swap clubs, or maybe it is just too soon to put Luiz into the conversation of potentially featuring in the Manchester City midfield. Whisper that for now — unless you’re a Villa supporter, of course, then shout it from the rooftops.

There’s a lot to like about Luiz at Villa and if this summer passes without any movement, the club hope he will become a big hit for the long term. Battled-hardened since the March 2020 lockdown when Smith and his coaching team were able to iron out some of the weaknesses in his game, Luiz’s transformation has been spectacular.

The decision was made to simplify his game. Out went the ambitious forward passes and in came a more measured, composed and efficient passing strategy.

Maybe he was a player, given his tender age last season, who benefited from the absence of an expecting, sometimes ruthless Villa Park crowd, who are quick to jump on players for mistakes.

His father suggests otherwise, telling Globo recently: “He’s cold-blooded. He always surprised me with that. He doesn’t get nervous about big games. The more pressure, the more he likes it.”

Regardless of the reasons, Luiz is now thriving.

Pre-lockdown, he was averaging 2.6 interceptions per 90 minutes — 56th-best in the league for central/defensive midfielders. Since Project Restart, his 4.2 interceptions put him in the top 20 midfielders in the league (18th out of 85, to be exact).

Luiz has improved his defensive output
METRIC   2019-20 (PRE-LOCKDOWN)   PROJECT RESTART - PRESENT
Interceptions
2.6
4.2
Aerial win rate
44%
52%
Dribbled-past rate
56%
43%
True Tackle win rate
33%
43%
He has become better at snuffing out attacks and becoming more defensive-minded, yet also carries the ball well. Players are getting the better of him on fewer occasions, too. His dribbled-past rate (the percentage of times that players successfully dribbled past him) has reduced from 56 per cent to 43 per cent of the time.

Guardiola will see all of this, of course, when Villa attempt to stop in-form City in their tracks on Wednesday and make amends for a 9-1 aggregate defeat in home and away league games last season.

Villa are a different beast now — and so is Luiz

[Risso]

"Villa supporters will never be able to fully enjoy and embrace him until his long-term future is nailed down, though."

Rubbish. I fully enjoy having him here and embrace him totally as a Villa player. If we only have him for two years, then it'll be a shame, but he'll go with a huge amount of thanks if City do exercise their option.

[WarszaVillan]

He's become my favourite player, he really is quality in my opinion. I wish he'd shoot more though as he has a great strike on him.

[LeeB]

The thing that concerns me most about the deal is not City wanting him for their midfield, more that his market value will be well in excess of the £27.5m, meaning it's in their interests financially to do the deal regardless of their needs.

I imagine though if that were the case, we'd negotiate the difference to buy him back. If the deal ended up with us paying them another £10m, that would still mean we'd paid about £25m for a top class midfielder.