Aston Villa scouts have been put on alert to find another defender after new boy Diego Carlos was ruled out for the rest of the year.
The powerful centre-back, 29, was a big £26million summer signing from Sevilla. But he was forced off in stoppage time of Villa’s 2-1 win over Everton after sustaining a serious injury.
The Brazilian later left Villa Park on crutches and in a protective boot and on Monday it was confirmed by the club that he has ruptured his Achilles tendon.
The ace won't play again this calendar year and is likely to need surgery and several months on the sidelines before returning nearer the end of the season.
In the meantime, Villa have now told their scouting network to draw up a list of potential new targets if the worst is confirmed. The injury took the gloss of Saturday’s 2-1 win over Everton for boss Steven Gerrard. He said: “I’m extremely happy with the win and the performance but, if we happen to lose someone who’s so important to us, that could tarnish the win. We’re going to send him for an MRI scan but it doesn’t look good right now.
“I’m worried about it. It’s around the ankle, Achilles area. You can see by the player and the man that he’s not the type to go off easy. He looks concerned with it and the medical staff seem concerned and that’s the reason why I’m worried about it.” Carlos partnered the recalled Tyrone Mings in the heart of defence against Everton with Gerrard stressing in the build up how the stopper is having daily English lessons before training.
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Villa secured the win over Everton thanks to goals from Danny Ings and Emiliano Buendia and Gerrard said that after a disappointing opening day defeat to Bournemouth he was happy with the performance levels from his side against the Toffees at Villa Park. “I certainly believe that our performance over the course of the 90 minutes deserved the outcome we got,” Gerrard said.
“It was much different to last week: more quality, everyone was tuned in and contributed to an important win. The conditions were extremely hard and we had to give a lot to the game. We have to check on a few injuries and knocks we’ve got. I’m hoping that’s not going to dampen the feeling we’ve got because it was important that we bounced back and important that we gave our supporters a better level of performance. Our players have delivered.
We controlled large parts of the game, we passed the ball extremely well, our positioning was much better. Our regain and go to go and execute was fantastic and we got two goals on the back of that. We still need to learn, we still need to be less naïve and manage games better. At 2-0, we’ve put ourselves under extreme pressure by not defending for their goal very well. We’ve still got bits and bobs to learn off but our first game at home, when the fans are in that noise on the back of last week, it’s a big win for us.”
