Joao Gomes to Aston Villa: Wolves’ tackling machine from Brazil will be popular with the fans on the Holte End | Football News

Aston Villa’s midfield rebuild continues apace with the acquisition of Joao Gomes from Wolves. And while the Brazil international was caught up in the malaise at Molineux, there is every reason to believe that he can become a popular figure at Villa Park.

It is a fantastic opportunity to play Champions League football for a player who deserved better than Premier League relegation. He was Wolves’ players’ player of the season, having picked up the supporters’ version of the award in the previous year.

His managers certainly seem to like him too. “He is a wonderful player,” said the former Wolves head coach Rob Edwards earlier this year. “It has been hard for him because in a team that has struggled at times or if you’ve not got the results, it can be challenging.”

Prior to that, Gary O’Neil had articulated why his team-mates appreciate the now 25-year-old midfielder’s approach to his work. “He is desperate to be successful but you never get the feeling it is for himself,” said O’Neil. “You get the feeling it is for the group.”

But what exactly will he bring to Aston Villa?

Tackles. And lots of them. Over the past three Premier League seasons, Gomes has made 380 tackles, which is 83 more than any other player in the competition. Once dubbed ‘The Pitbull’ his combative style will have been noted even by opposition fans.

During these three seasons, no Premier League player has recovered possession of the ball more times than Gomes. There must be an element of positional intelligence to this knack, but most obviously it is his strength and skilful use of his body to shield the ball.

Winning it back was a key weapon for Wolves last season. Even in what was a desperately poor team, Gomes ranked among the top 10 players in the Premier League for expected goals created following his interceptions. His is a front-foot approach.

Indeed, Gomes covers the ground well so that he is far from a traditional holding midfield player. He is someone happier going in search of the ball. He pressured the opposition 1646 times last season – more than any Aston Villa player under Unai Emery.

He can be an impressive ball carrier too, averaging almost 20 carries per 90 minutes in the Premier League last season. Perhaps surprisingly, that is a lot more than Morgan Rogers and more than double that of Emi Buendia, John McGinn and Youri Tielemans.

As such, one wonders whether this slightly chaotic style might be something that Emery seeks to hone rather than unleash. Having an aggressive and mobile presence in Villa’s midfield will be welcomed but the Villa coach prefers control. Expect Gomes to mature.

Other areas of his game will need to improve but there is a feeling that he is a player capable of doing so. For example, Gomes has rarely been praised for his passing range but he is a reliable distributor of the ball and there is time to develop in this regard.

Genius Sports uses a combination of tracking data and event data to calculate how many passes Premier League players complete compared to the number that they might have been expected to complete given the difficulty of the passes attempted.

Gomes is one of only half a dozen Premier League players to have outperformed their expected pass completion by four percentage points in each of the last three seasons. It is just a little indication that with better options around him, he could well flourish.

There might be less optimism about Gomes’ scoring record given that he found the net only once for Wolves last season. Ironically, that came in a man-of-the-match performance against Aston Villa when he scored the opener in a 2-0 win at Molineux.

Speaking to Edwards after that game, it was a chance to ask him about Gomes. “I put a bit of pressure on him before the game when I spoke to him at the training ground before the match,” he told Sky Sports. “I said I wanted more from him. He really stepped up.”

But it proved to be his final goal in a Wolves shirt, one of only seven in his 116 Premier League appearances to date. It had started with a bang, at least. Gomes came off the bench to score the winner for 10-man Wolves at Southampton on his debut for the club.

Given that Tielemans, despite his Europa League final heroics, did not actually register a Premier League goal last season, and Villa’s top scoring central midfielder in the competition was Ross Barkley with just three, it might not be the major priority for Emery.

But if he wants a player coming into his peak years with a great attitude, someone humble off the pitch but with real personality on it, then Gomes looks a bargain. Expect the name of this tough-tackling midfielder to be sung on the Holte End very soon.