Lindelöf Started All 10 Villa League Games After Konsa Left, and Now He Stays to 2028

When Ezri Konsa left Aston Villa for Arsenal in the summer, the obvious question was who would take his place on the right side of Unai Emery's central defense. Ten Premier League games into the season, the answer is a free transfer from Manchester United. On Tuesday, Villa exercised a one-year option in Victor Lindelöf's contract, keeping the 32-year-old Sweden captain at the club until 2028.

Villa did sign a direct replacement for Konsa. Taylor Harwood-Bellis arrived in the summer, but Emery has been unwilling to start the 24-year-old regularly, according to Birmingham Live. Lindelöf took the job instead, and he has not given it back: the local paper reports he has started all 10 of Villa's Premier League matches this season and each of their four Champions League games.

Emery has been open about how he sees it. "I think Lindelof is replacing Konsa well," he said earlier this season, as quoted by Birmingham Live. "Taylor is adapting to us, and I think he is going to progress and feel better."

That is a very different role from the one Lindelöf had a year ago. When he joined from United on a free in the summer of 2025, he signed a two-year deal with an option for a third. He started only 11 Premier League games last season, and Villa lost just two of them, away at Arsenal and at home to Tottenham.

The other thing Emery got from Lindelöf last season was flexibility. He played on both sides of a back three or four, at right back and even in a midfield double pivot. That last role came on the biggest night of Villa's recent history: he started alongside Youri Tielemans in midfield in the 3-0 Europa League final win over Freiburg in Istanbul, the result that ended a 30-year wait for a trophy, as BBC Sport noted.

BBC Sport counts 43 Villa appearances for him in total, 15 of them this season, and the club said he is "approaching 50 appearances in claret and blue."

For Villa, the decision is low-risk. Triggering an option costs no transfer fee, keeps a regular starter under contract beyond this season and removes the chance of losing him for nothing next summer. It also means Emery does not need to rush Harwood-Bellis while the schedule includes both the Premier League and the Champions League.

The timing gives the defense a sense of continuity after a chaotic weekend. Villa's last game before the international break was Sunday's 4-4 draw at Old Trafford, where United scored a 96th-minute equalizer.

Lindelöf now heads to the Sweden camp with 84 caps, preparing for Nations League games against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Poland. When he comes back, he will return as what Villa clearly now see him as: not a stopgap from Old Trafford, but the defender who made Konsa's exit look manageable.