star player set to break his own Aston Villa goal scoring record as 92% ace has career best start

As a 92% ace with a career-best start, Douglas Luiz is poised to smash his own Aston Villa goal scoring record.
Few would have predicted that Aston Villa would dominate Brighton in the way that they did when they defeated Robert De Zerbi’s Seagulls 6-1.

After a strong start to the season, Unai Emery’s team didn’t let up during Saturday’s (30 September) victory, passing Brighton to go up into fifth position and the Europa League spots.

Ollie Watkins will undoubtedly receive praise for his outstanding hat trick, and he deserves it. However, Douglas Luiz frequently manages the proceedings from the middle of the pitch while remaining unnoticed, and Garth Crooks was eager to highlight the Brazilian’s efforts.

“The ease with which he struck the ball to score his fifth consecutive home league goal in the 6-1 win over Brighton said it all for me,” Crooks wrote in his BBC Sport Team of the Week column on October 3. Since Unai Emery’s hiring, this guy has been a revelation for Aston Villa.

“I always assumed Philippe Coutinho would be the one to light up Villa Park, but it appears that another Brazilian is doing it at the moment. The team doesn’t appear out of place in the top six, but Luiz is now playing out of his skin.

The cherry on top of a great afternoon for both Villa and the 25-year-old was Luiz’s goal in the 97th minute, his third of the season. He completed 92% of his 40 attempted passes for Emery’s side, scarcely making a mistake in the middle of the pitch [Fotmob].

He executed two accurate long passes and made six passes towards the last third of the field while giving his teammates one opportunity. He won five ground duels in defence, including two tackles, four ball recoveries, and victories against Billy Gilmour and Jack Hinshelwood with Boubacar Kamara.

While the Brazilian is frequently dependent on penalties for his source of goals, if Luiz continues to score at his present rate—averaging 0.43 goals per game—for the duration of the season, he will score 16 goals for Aston Villa.

Watkins was the only player in the league last season to score double digits, with Danny Ings, Jacob Ramsey, and Luiz all tied for second with six goals each. The Brazilian has already played seven games this season, which is half as many as last year.

The midfielder’s late goal at Villa Park on Saturday had an unusually low xG of only 0.12 and the Brazilian’s three goals so far this season have come from an xG of 1.99, despite the fact that many will say that is because he took penalties for Villa.

This is by no means a novel feature of Luiz’s game, and it might help Emery and Villa’s chances of finishing in the top six this year, as per Fbref, in the previous campaign.