Aston Villa’s Fastest Players
Aston Villa’s Champions League dream may be over for now (until hopefully next season), but referring back to Villa’s decent return to Europe’s top club competition, looking through the stats of the tournament, MOMS stumbled across an interesting comparison of Villa’s squad in terms of the top speeds players reached during the tournament. While it’s not a straight-up indication of who is the team’s fastest players, as their position dictates the amount and distance of running they do (a longer distance would allow a player to build up their speed), it does provide an insight into the speedster pecking order and a chance to compare players in similar positions.
Villa’s top speed merchant turned out to be a player that was sold before the knockout stages, Jhon Duran, who’s 35.4 kilometre per hour, has clear daylight ahead of the next registered top speed by Jacob Ramsey of 34.4 km/h. While Diego Carlos may have moved on too, it’s good to see four of Villa’s key defenders all chalking up speeds over 33km/h, with Errs Konsa the quickest of all of Villa’s backline at 34.3 km/h.
In terms of surprises, Amadou Onana registering as the joint 7th fastest in the squad, a mere 0.1km/h behind the rapid Maatsen, is certainly an eyebrow raiser. But, probably the most surprising is Ollie Watkins (33km/h) ranking 11th. Maybe shorter runs curtailed his speed? Although, there’s several strikers above even Duran’s top speed, when you look at other teams’ players.
Duran was actually only joint 21st in the whole tournament, with the top three featuring PSG’s Hakimi with 36.9 km/h, Harland 36.6 km/h and Mbappe 36.4 km/h.
PSG v Villa
One of the overriding memories of Villa’s eventual quarter-final defeat against PSG was the overall speed of the French team. To the eye, they were impressively quick across the pitch. PSG had three players — Hakimi (36.9), Nuno Mendes (35.7) and Barcola (35.6) — that all registered speeds faster than Villa’s top dog, Duran. Interestingly though, when you look more broadly across the team, Villa had 11 players clocking speeds of 33 km/h and above (Ollie Watkins’ speed) in the tournament, while PSG had just eight.
Premier League Speed Kings
In terms of the other English teams in last season’s Champions League, Arsenal had 12 players registering 33 km/h and over, Liverpool had 13, while Manchester City had 10.
Interestingly, it seems that Premier League teams do have speed on their side, when you also look at the fact that the finalists Inter had just six and beaten semi-finalists Barcelona had eight players over the 33 km/h mark.
Aston Villa Player’s Top Speed in the Champions League
| Rank | Player | Top Speed (km/h) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jhon Durán | 35.4 |
| 2 | Jacob Ramsey | 34.4 |
| 3 | Ezri Konsa | 34.3 |
| 3 | Marcus Rashford | 34.3 |
| 5 | Morgan Rogers | 33.8 |
| 6 | Ian Maatsen | 33.7 |
| 7 | Amadou Onana | 33.6 |
| 7 | Tyrone Mings | 33.6 |
| 7 | Diego Carlos | 33.6 |
| 10 | Matty Cash | 33.4 |
| 11 | Ollie Watkins | 33 |
| 12 | Lamare Bogarde | 32.8 |
| 12 | John McGinn | 32.8 |
| 14 | Boubacar Kamara | 32.5 |
| 14 | Jaden Philogene | 32.5 |
| 16 | Leon Bailey | 32.3 |
| 17 | Emi Buendía | 32.2 |
| 18 | Pau Torres | 31.8 |
| 19 | Marco Asensio | 31.4 |
| 20 | Axel Disasi | 31.1 |
| 20 | Youri Tielemans | 31.1 |
| 20 | Lucas Digne | 31.1 |
| 23 | Kosta Nedeljković | 31 |
| 24 | Ross Barkley | 30.11 |
| 25 | Emi Martinez | 26.7 |
AOB
Just for curiosity’s sake, Jack Grealish’s top speed at Manchester City during last season’s tournament was 31.9 km/h, which was only the 17th fastest in the City squad, the same place he would be if he were in the Villa squad. Jude Bellingham, meanwhile, registered a respectable 33.9 km/h in a nippy Real Madrid squad, in which Vinicius Junior was only the third quickest on 35.5, behind both Mbappé (36.4) and Raúl Asencio (35.8).
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