Hjalmar Ekdal absence explained for Burnley's defeat to Aston Villa
A few eyebrows will have been raised when Hjalmar Ekdal’s name was completely absent from Burnley’s teamsheet for Sunday’s game against Aston Villa.
The centre-back has started every league game for the Clarets this season, but was dropped for the trip to Villa Park.
Not only was the 26-year-old taken out of the starting line-up, he didn’t even make the Burnley bench.
Instead, summer signing Axel Tuanzebe came in to make his first league appearance of the season.
Explaining that call, Parker explained: “I just wanted to change it up a little bit.
"We brought Axel to the club and I thought he was brilliant today [Sunday].
"He’s coming in from a long period on the sidelines and we were wanting him to get him up to fitness and decided, certainly in the way we were going to play in terms of being more aggressive, I thought Axel could give us that and I thought he did.”
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When asked if Ekdal is fully fit, considering he didn’t even make the bench, Parker added: “Yeah, he's fine.
"It was just more tactical at this moment. These are not easy decisions you have to make as a coach sometimes. I have to make a decision on the dynamics of the game and who I may need or who I may not need from the bench.”
The Clarets were then dealt an injury concern during the 2-1 defeat when top goalscorer Jaidon Anthony was forced off just before the hour mark.
“He got a big hit on his quad and he was limping around,” Parker said.
"Again, you can only leave it so long before then and you may have to make a change and I decided that I didn't want him to carry that going into the final part of the game.”
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