Unai Emery reveals his challenge to Douglas Luiz at Aston Villa
Unai Emery has challenged Douglas Luiz to rediscover the form which earned him a move away from the club in the first place.
The Brazil midfielder returned to the club on loan in January, just 18 months after being sold to Juventus for £42.5million.
Luiz’s early performances back in claret and blue have encouraged Emery but the manager believes there is still more to come.
He said: “Douglas left from here one year and a half ago and he didn’t perform well, or he didn’t play a lot in Juventus and in Nottingham Forest.
“Coming back here, I spoke with him: ‘You must again recover and remind of everything we were doing here. Through it, you were performing so, so good, and through it, you got those deals leaving from here.
“We were speaking about the time he needed to get it, and he is doing it.”
Luiz, who Villa have the option to buy back permanently in the summer, was signed after injuries to Boubacar Kamara, John McGinn and Youri Tielemans left Emery short in the middle of the park.
But the boss believes the form of youngster Lamare Bogarde and return to fitness of Ross Barkley means Villa have enough players to compete on three fronts in the final months of the season.
“As a coach, I had this problem a lot of times,” said Emery.
“Now, I don’t have another issue different than before I had in another moment, or in other countries and other clubs, or even here in Aston Villa. And other teams, as well, they have this problem with players being injured.
“But we are, after the transfer window finishing, and with some change we did, and with the players, they are injured, we are working with different possibilities.”
