Earlier today, François Van der Elst had urged Belgium manager Domenico Tedesco to drop Aston Villa’s Youri Tielemans in favour of Royal Antwerp’s Arthur Vermeeren for October’s international break.
Tielemans has struggled to enjoy regular game time since he joined the Villans in the last window and has to settle for starts in the Europa Conference League this season. Vermeeren, on the other hand, has impressed for the Jupiler Pro League side.
Despite this, Tedesco has included the Aston Villa player in the Belgium squad to face Austria and Sweden in the European qualifiers and has explained his reasoning. His quotes are relayed by La Dernière Heure.
The 26-year-old has clocked in just over 500 minutes from 12 games and the national team coach has insisted that he’s not worried about the restricted game time with Unai Emery’s side.
“I’m not worried about him. Aston Villa not only play on weekends, but also in Europe. Yesterday he played 90 minutes. It’s enough for me. It doesn’t matter if he plays in the Premier League or in Europe, it’s not a problem,” he said.
“Clearly, this is not an easy time. The Villans have a lot of quality with a lot of players. It’s important for us to see Youri and talk to him to see how he feels.”
Tielemans is one of multiple Belgium players who changed clubs in the last window and even though Tedesco didn’t specifically name anyone, he did relay his happiness over their choices.
“I’m very satisfied with the choices of the players. The situation is completely different now than it was three or four weeks ago. Everyone has a certain rhythm of match. They all play at least one match a week,” the Belgium manager added.
