Unai Emery simply cannot ignore £35m Aston Villa gem against Fulham - it would be a needless mistake

Aston Villa will be desperate to record their first Premier League win of the season as they play host to Fulham on Sunday afternoon.

The Villans finally won a game midweek as they saw off Bologna by one goal to nil to kick off their UEFA Europa League campaign, but the Premier League is the competition that matters most. Just three points from an available 15 are far fewer than all associated with Villa would have expected at the beginning of the campaign, so they must play catch-up – and quickly.

Unai Emery will not change his structure, or at least he won’t drift away from his core principles, regardless of the results. The four-time Europa League winner’s system has been tried and tested throughout decades, and, albeit subtly tweaked over the years, it has led to great success. What Emery could change, though, is the personnel selected each weekend.

Emery must not ignore £35m Aston Villa gem against Fulham

With that in mind, in our view, there’s one player who simply must be included in the starting lineup to take on Fulham this Sunday. His name is Harvey Elliott.

Signed on loan from Liverpool with an obligation to buy for £35 million if he makes 10 appearances this season, Elliott left Anfield for regular game time, but he’s yet to get it so far. It’s been a peculiar time as Elliott has shown glimpses of his quality when he’s featured but he hasn’t been given a proper run in the team yet.

Yes, it’s still very early days in his Villa career, but the team has been struggling to create chances – and that’s his forte. What better time to introduce a top talent like Elliott than when Villa are being toothless? That’s just common sense, surely.

Emery has been largely ignoring Elliott. Of a possible 360 minutes, the midfielder has played just 118. Meanwhile, fellow summer signing Evann Guessand, playing in an auxiliary right wing role, has racked up 288. That wouldn’t be much of a problem if Guessand was impressing, but the Ivorian has really struggled to adapt to the English game thus far.

Watkins could benefit from Elliott inclusion

If Elliott were to get the nod, Ollie Watkins, currently enduring a career-longest nine-game goal drought, could really profit. The service for Watkins so far this season has been extremely poor. The service for the entire attack has been poor, quite frankly. Heading into the sixth Premier League gameweek of the season, Villa rank 20th in the division for expected goals (xG), with merely 3.9 from five matches.

For comparison, Manchester United, widely criticised and guided by under-pressure head coach Ruben Amorim, are far and away at the summit with 10.1xG so far in 2025/26. Chance creation has clearly not been an issue for the Red Devils, it’s been the lack of clinical nature hampering their performances.

For Villa, it’s the opposite. We all know how ruthless Watkins can be in the final third when he gets in his stride. But he can’t properly get in said stride without the aid of his attacking and midfield counterparts.

Elliott could be the man to change the tide. Last season, albeit from a small 360-minute sample size, Elliott was among the top 10% of all Premier League midfielders and wingers for several statistics. Per 90 minutes on average, Elliott racked up 2.5 chances created, 0.5 assists, 4.5 accurate long balls and 57.2 successful passes. He was also dynamic in the final third, with 4.25 shots and 1 shot on target per 90.

Starting Elliott against Fulham won’t be an overnight fix for all of Villa’s problems. That would be unrealistic, given the lack of confidence in the squad overall. But it could at least help Villa get on their way back to their former selves.