Emi Buendia exclusive: Aston Villa star explains how injury taught him to value every moment

Too much of his past year was spent in the warmth of the Bodymoor Heath gym, looking out longingly through the windows at his team-mates battling the elements, as he rehabbed the knee injury which left him a frustrated spectator to Villa’s best season in decades.

“I was wishing desperately to be one of them,” he says. “One of the big things about the kind of injury I had is you realise the value of everything.

"We are really privileged people because we work for our passion."

There are two pictures, posted side-by-side on Buendia’s Instagram account, to which the playmaker often finds himself returning whenever he needs a reminder of the above lesson.

The first shows him leaping in mid-air, after scoring in Villa’s final pre-season match at Valencia, a week before the 2023-24 Premier League campaign was due to begin.

Delight is etched across the face of a man who felt ready to deliver the best season of his career and who, just a couple of days before, had discovered he was due to become a father for the third time.

But then there is the second photo. Buendia is on his haunches, beaming smile turned to grimace. Underneath, there is a short message, thanking people for their messages of support and vowing to return stronger.

“I look at those pictures because it reminds me how life can change so quickly, both in good and bad ways,” says the 27-year-old.

For Buendia it changed on a Wednesday afternoon, three days before Villa were due to start their season away at Newcastle.

“It was the last action of the training session,” he explains. “I knew it and suspected something bad. I felt something.

“In the beginning the knee didn’t swell at all but then with the scan, everything was bad. It was a bad moment.”