Pau Torres

[Dave]

Being reported in some quarters that contracts have now been signed and it's all official.

[eamonn]

Will he be our record signing or does the tyke Buendia maintain his status due to the shit exchange rate or summat ?

[Percy McCarthy]

Will he be our record signing or does the tyke Buendia maintain his status due to the shit exchange rate or summat ?

Quite a bit cheaper than Buendia, according to reports.

[Dave]

In this age of inflated transfer fees it's a bit surprising he's still our only £30m+ transfer.

When you consider Wolves have had three, West Ham have had six and Chelsea have had thirty three.

[olaftab]

In this age of inflated transfer fees it's a bit surprising he's still our only £30m+ transfer.

When you consider Wolves have had three, West Ham have had six and Chelsea have had thirty three.

No wonder this sort of situation makes Flintstone and other net spenders mad. We won't get anywhere unless we start paying £50M+ for players.

[pablo_picasso]

In this age of inflated transfer fees it's a bit surprising he's still our only £30m+ transfer.

When you consider Wolves have had three, West Ham have had six and Chelsea have had thirty three.

...Last transfer window.

[sid1964]

I read this elsewhere with regards to the Pau Torres transfer - If I were Gregg I would ask to report on another football club - he just does not like us.

There's a real whopper from Greg Evans in The Athletic, I can't reproduce the article here because it's behind a subscription/ paywall, but to give you a flavour he writes, " The hope is he becomes more of a Carlos Cuellar than a Jose Angel Crespo."

[Drummond]

Pau Torres: Is Aston Villa signing the defender really the coup it appears?


By Gregg Evans and Thom Harris


Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Pau Torres’ imminent arrival at Aston Villa is his reunion with their head coach, Unai Emery.

Torres, the 26-year-old centre-half who is leaving Villarreal for the ambitious project underway at Villa Park, was a star at his hometown club and, in particular, during Emery’s time captaining the Yellow Submarine, as the La Liga club are known because of the colour of their kit.

It was on Villarreal’s journey towards winning the Europa League in 2021 and then to the semi-finals of the Champions League the following year that Torres’ stock rose considerably. He became one of the most talked-about defenders across the European game, with almost every top club taking an interest.

The €50million (£43m; $54.5m) release clause in his contract, due to expire in the summer of 2024, was put there to protect the Villarreal for the day when one of the big boys came calling. Bayern Munich recently weighed up a move for him, just like Manchester City, Real Madrid, Barcelona and many more had done previously, only for each to ultimately look elsewhere for a defender.

The expectation at Villarreal was that Torres would still move to a top Champions League club for the maximum price. But no firm offers materialised other than the one from Villa (who can offer no better this season than a two-leg play-off in late August to decide who qualifies for the third-tier Europa Conference League), where he is due to have a medical this week.

Emery, with the support of Villa co-owner Nassef Sawiris and recently-arrived president of football operations, Monchi, was even able to drive the price down to an initial €32.5million with a further €5m of performance-related add-ons included.

So, is this the coup it appears at first glance?

And how have Villa, who finished seventh in the Premier League last season, managed to lure away one of the leading lights of the fifth-best club in La Liga?

The answer to the second question is easier: Emery.

Villa’s head coach knows exactly how good Torres is and was able to look beyond the perceived weaknesses — concerning his physicality and lack of aggression — which appear to have put other clubs off.

Emery also knows how receptive Torres is to his coaching methods. That should help the player settle into his new surroundings in England and get up to speed with the demands of the Villa staff and the Premier League quickly.

After his impressive debut season in charge, Emery is the person with the most power at the club other than co-owners Sawiris and Wes Edens, and he was granted spending assurances when appointed last November. So if the initial outlay on a fourth centre-back looks steep, it is because Torres was a target — albeit an ambitious one — right from the start.

Losing his place in the Spain squad has not provoked any doubts, either. Torres was an unused substitute for the first two games at the World Cup last year before starting the group-stage finale, which Spain lost 2-1 to Japan. Since then, with Luis Enrique stepping down after the tournament and Luis de la Fuente taking over as coach, he has not made a squad.

Yet Torres could look at Tyrone Mings, his soon-to-be team-mate, as cause for optimism. Mings had slipped out of the England setup by the time Emery succeeded Steven Gerrard just before the World Cup break began. The new head coach duly simplified his role so that, instead of “doing other people’s jobs”, as Mings put it, he stayed in a specified area of the pitch on the left side of defence and stuck purely to his defensive duties. He returned to form and Gareth Southgate’s national squad.

Torres’ arrival will certainly strengthen the defensive unit at Villa and create stronger competition for places.

Mings, 30, and Ezri Konsa, 25, performed admirably in the second half of last season, demonstrating they are reliable performers but also tactically intelligent enough to take on new instruction. They kept newcomer Diego Carlos, who returned in late March after a lengthy period recovering from an early-season Achilles injury, out of the team over the run-in. As a result, the jury is still out on the 30-year-old Brazilian.

Calum Chambers, 28, still offers cover but may now look for more regular game time elsewhere, while 19-year-old defender Seb Revan is close to securing a loan move to a League Two club.

The reality is, for the second successive summer, Villa have signed an expensive, Europa League-winning centre-half from a club in Spain who will arrive expecting to start matches. Torres’ first task, though, will be to show he is better than those centre-backs already at the club.

Pre-season will give Emery and his coaching team a better idea of the strongest pairing from four players competing for two places in the team. The much-discussed option of moving Konsa across to right-back, fulfilling a role similar to that undertaken by Juan Foyth at Villarreal under Emery, may be explored.

Most likely, though, is a regular mixing up of the centre-back pairings as Villa’s fixture list expands with participation in (they hope) the Conference League group stage and potentially a deeper run in domestic cup football after early exits from both last time.

What will be more important for Villa will be finding the right balance.

Can Mings and Torres play together as two left-footers? Perhaps the modern attacking formations, where inverted wide players regularly switch sides, removes the traditional logic of matching up players in such a way? Realistically, defenders, who typically are less agile than forwards, always prefer to position their bodies with the weight on their stronger foot. If Emery does move Mings or Torres away from their favoured left side it may be disruptive, or at least require time to adjust.

What is clear about Torres is the emphasis Emery places on playing out from the back.

Last season, Torres averaged 3.4 progressive carries per game — the most of any centre-back in La Liga. And as the map below shows, he is comfortable moving the ball forward large distances — his average carry distance of 6.7 metres last season was bettered only by Villarreal team-mate Raul Albiol among centre-backs in Spain’s top division.

The way he breaks the lines in the opposition set-up is also one of his greatest strengths. Last season, Torres was behind only Eric Garcia, Andreas Christensen, Marcos Alonso (all of Barcelona) and Yeray Alvarez (Athletic Bilbao) when it came to progressive passing.

On the defensive side of things, no La Liga centre-back made fewer than his 0.38 interceptions per game, a stat which shows he doesn’t tend to step out very often, while his aerial duel win rate of 55.1 per cent was among the worst in his position in the division.

However, he does win the ball back for his team a lot (5.7 per game — which placed him among the top 20 of the 66 La Liga centre-backs to play 900-plus minutes last season) and makes plenty of blocks and clearances. He also has a good true-tackle win rate — a player’s win rate among all tackles attempted, fouls committed and challenges lost — of 65.2 per cent, which also places him in the top 20 among his positional peers.

So while not a front-foot defender, Torres is often in the right place at the right time to tidy up those threatening moments.

Leaving home permanently for the first time will bring challenges for Torres, but having a Spanish-speaking coaching team he is familiar with will surely help the adjustment process. Villa’s player-care department, fronted by Phil Roscoe, also tries to help new arrivals settle in, first through an induction to the club and with regular support thereafter.

Carlos and Alex Moreno needed time to adapt to new surroundings last season having left Spain without speaking much English, and it will be the same for recently married Torres. What may help is that he is the 10th Spanish player Villa have signed. The hope is he becomes more of a Carlos Cuellar than a Jose Angel Crespo.

Emery appears to have no doubts he will shine.

If all goes to plan, by the end of this week he will have his man.

[LeeB]

He looks like the total opposite of Cuellar, the only Spaniard ever with a first touch worse than mine.

You're right, Gregggg is a plum.

[Drummond]

I read this elsewhere with regards to the Pau Torres transfer - If I were Gregg I would ask to report on another football club - he just does not like us.

There's a real whopper from Greg Evans in The Athletic, I can't reproduce the article here because it's behind a subscription/ paywall, but to give you a flavour he writes, " The hope is he becomes more of a Carlos Cuellar than a Jose Angel Crespo."

What a truly shit line.

[Dave]

I read this elsewhere with regards to the Pau Torres transfer - If I were Gregg I would ask to report on another football club - he just does not like us.

There's a real whopper from Greg Evans in The Athletic, I can't reproduce the article here because it's behind a subscription/ paywall, but to give you a flavour he writes, " The hope is he becomes more of a Carlos Cuellar than a Jose Angel Crespo."

What a truly shit line.

I'm guessing that as people seem to think we have a bargain at £25m, compared to the half million that we spent on Crespo suggests he's probably not going to be much like the latter.

Next up "let's hope Villa's new £50m attacker doesn't turn out to be like Jordan Bowery"

[chrisw1]

It's a throwaway line.  I imagine he would have preferred better examples, but wanted to get something in.

I'm excited to see Torres play but just don't see how we will cope without Mings' aggression and aerial ability.  Mings got through so much work in our good spell it was unbelievable.  If that is Torres main weakness then I do fear for us defensively if he's a direct replacement.

[johnc]

In this age of inflated transfer fees it's a bit surprising he's still our only £30m+ transfer.

When you consider Wolves have had three, West Ham have had six and Chelsea have had thirty three.

I am surprised Chelsea have only had 33 signings over 30M!

[OCD]

The expectation at Villarreal was that Torres would still move to a top Champions League club for the maximum price. But no firm offers materialised other than the one from Villa (who can offer no better this season than a two-leg play-off in late August to decide who qualifies for the third-tier Europa Conference League), where he is due to have a medical this week.

That was the line that stood out to me this morning when I read it.

[LeeB]

Bitter bastard