Aston Villa should complete signing of London-club defender with better stats than Ezri Konsa last season

Aston Villa should be making Tosin Adarabioyo their priority target to replace Ezri Konsa based on their statistics from last season.

Konsa's future at Aston Villa has been up in the air over the last few months since their Europa League success.

Arsenal saw a £30million bid for his services rejected earlier in the summer as he played regularly during England's run to the World Cup semi-finals.

They have retained an interest in the 28-year-old into the final month of the window, and are now set to complete a deal worth £51m in the next 24 hours.

His late departure will leave Villa scrambling to get a new starting defender through the door, with Chelsea man Tosin reportedly on their radar.

While some fans may have their reservations about signing the Blues defender, the stats show that he could well perform even better than Konsa in a Villa shirt.

Tosin had better defensive stats than Ezri Konsa last season

Sources exclusively revealed to Football Insider last week that Konsa's move to Arsenal was "99 per cent done", and he is now on his way to North London before the new season starts.

He will be a huge loss for Unai Emery's side, after being a regular for the last seven seasons and racking up 48 appearances across all competitions last term.

Tosin was rotated among Chelsea's wealth of defensive options last season, featuring 16 times over 789 minutes in the Premier League.

He did impress in those PL appearances, making more accurate passes per 90 minutes (78.1) and playing more accurate long balls per 90 (2.28) than Konsa at Villa (59.4 and 1.81) across the campaign.

Tosin is five inches taller than Konsa, and so won more aerial duels per 90 than the Arsenal-bound defender last season too, with 2.6 (70.7%) to his 0.9 (57.1%).

Konsa had better ground duel and dribbling stats, but Tosin's defensive stats highlighted his quality compared to the England man.

Tosin won more tackles per 90 than Konsa (0.91 to 0.24), made more clearances (7.53 to 3.62), more headed clearances (5.13 to 1.63) and more interceptions (1.03 to 0.68) too, so he may well be more of an upgrade on the outgoing Villa man than fans believe.

Enzo Maresca has praised Tosin's off-pitch values too

While he could have a positive impact on Villa's fortunes in terms of his performances on the field, Emery's interest in Tosin may also relate to his off-field nous.

Maresca was a huge advocate of his impact on the Blues' dressing room during their time working together, especially as the debate raged on about their lack of elder statesmen in the squad.

In November 2024, he said: "I think we don't have a proper leader. We don't have guys, you can see them…probably Tosin is one of the guys that is."

Then in January 2025, he also added: "We have different kinds of characters, the one that is most vocal in the dressing room is Tosin."