Team shape, tactics and personnel

[gilbertoAVFC]

8 hours ago, Tom13 said:

Not really, could have taken 4-6 points from the two games.

Well you'll never know whether we would've beaten Brentford if we'd gone full strength, which was not exactly light years better than our actual team anyway.

I cannot understand why people have an issue with prioritising games. Every good manager has done it, and it's won Emery many trophies in Spain.

[beasley14]

2 hours ago, TRO said:

I can also see the rationale, by his decision.....fortunately, I didn't travel, but feel sorry for the souls that did.

I am reluctant to get in to making comments on player fitness, because, I have no experience in that area, so feel obliged to swerve it.

However, Lascelles said recently after a game, I could play another 90 minutes, such is my fitness......maybe because, he hasn't played much, I don't know.

Some things are hard to contest.....so I will just accept the situation, with limited knowledge.

 

 

I totally agree with your points around the unknowns, we're not privy to the info the club has.  Interesting comment from Lascelles, he's just done his ACL!

[ben1505]

18 hours ago, DJBOB said:

Like any long campaign, the resources in the beginning are almost never the same resources at the end. 
 
Especially given the injuries we’ve had this year, I doubt Unai would have thought he would be without Mings, Buendia, and Kamara at this point in the season. JJ has played the full 90 only 7 times.

Part of being a leader is having that situational awareness and Unai’s own comments, while on the humble side, has been reflective of that. He never once thought about being this squad being a title challenger. He consistently stated the danger of Chelsea, United, and Newcastle overtaking us. He didn’t want to talk about UCL until match week 33-34. 
 
And yet he’s motivated this team far enough where UCL is far more likely than not and we’re in the quarters for conference league. 
 
There are no style points to win and nothing left to prove. Win enough matches for 4th/5th, win the conference league and get these players to the summer for a much needed rest. 

Was Ming’s injury the reason we went for Torres? I forget now 

[Stevo985]

54 minutes ago, ben1505 said:

Was Ming’s injury the reason we went for Torres? I forget now 

No. Torres was on the bench already for that game and was the player that came on to replace Mings when he got injured

[Delphinho123]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

No. Torres was on the bench already for that game and was the player that came on to replace Mings when he got injured

I sometimes wonder how the season would have played out if Mings hadn’t got injured.

There is a part of me that thinks Torres being thrown in like he was, was a good thing for Villa as he had to adapt and grow into a PL player very quickly. Obviously it would have happened regardless of Ty’s injury, I believe it just expedited the process.

Would Mings and Torres have been our first choice? Tough to say because I know Emery likes a right and left footed partnership. If you watch the way we play, you’d understand why that is so important.

Fascinating to see how Mings comes back from the injury. One of my favourite ever Villa players for sure 

[Stevo985]

3 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

I sometimes wonder how the season would have played out if Mings hadn’t got injured.

There is a part of me that thinks Torres being thrown in like he was, was a good thing for Villa as he had to adapt and grow into a PL player very quickly. Obviously it would have happened regardless of Ty’s injury, I believe it just expedited the process.

Would Mings and Torres have been our first choice? Tough to say because I know Emery likes a right and left footed partnership. If you watch the way we play, you’d understand why that is so important.

Fascinating to see how Mings comes back from the injury. One of my favourite ever Villa players for sure 

Yeah it’s a good question. I don’t honestly know. Torres is so good, and Unai would have known that, that I assume the plan was always to get him into the first team. 
 

Maybe Mings’ injury saved him from a tough decision

[Delphouneso]

 

37 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Yeah it’s a good question. I don’t honestly know. Torres is so good, and Unai would have known that, that I assume the plan was always to get him into the first team. 
 

Maybe Mings’ injury saved him from a tough decision

Or Mings would’ve just played RCB where Diego has been playing.

Can’t really know what Emery was planning but considering how he tends to favour Konsa at RB when he can I suspect Moreno - Pau - Mings - Konsa may have been his preferred defence, in that shape the RCB ends up playing centrally in a back 3 when we’re in possession anyway.

[Captain_Townsend]

47 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

I sometimes wonder how the season would have played out if Mings hadn’t got injured.

There is a part of me that thinks Torres being thrown in like he was, was a good thing for Villa as he had to adapt and grow into a PL player very quickly. Obviously it would have happened regardless of Ty’s injury, I believe it just expedited the process.

 

They all would have got minutes in different games. Look how Emery utilises his squad

[Stevo985]

5 minutes ago, Delphouneso said:

 

Or Mings would’ve just played RCB where Diego has been playing.

Can’t really know what Emery was planning but considering how he tends to favour Konsa at RB when he can I suspect Moreno - Pau - Mings - Konsa may have been his preferred defence, in that shape the RCB ends up playing centrally in a back 3 when we’re in possession anyway.

Yeah I’ve said all season I think Emery wanted Konsa at RB all season. But Cash’s good start to the season and CB injuries meant it didn’t happen for a while

[Delphouneso]

10 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Yeah I’ve said all season I think Emery wanted Konsa at RB all season. But Cash’s good start to the season and CB injuries meant it didn’t happen for a while

Agreed. I know people aren’t keen on Konsa at RB but Cash can’t play that RCB role which has a knock on effect throughout the pitch when we end up pulling Kamara/Dougie back out of midfield to fill in. 

[Delphouneso]

Just to illustrate the above the left image is our attacking shape with Konsa at ‘RB’, the right image is pretty much how we ended the West Ham game with Cash at RB. Balance is all off, overcrowded on the right side, massive gaps in midfield for Tielemans to cover on his own, and Douglas ‘Tommy Elphick’ Luiz covering CB.

[AlwaysAVFC]

They say you learn a lot in defeat. While there were personnel and shape differences against Spurs and Man City, I think the overall gane plans were similar to yesterday. However we executed it perfectly. Individual performances were high quality and worked well as a team.

The big difference was we kept them from scoring which enabled us to keep to Plan A.

[villan95]

Keeping clean sheets in both matches v Arsenal and at home to City is very impressive. If we could show that organisation and concentration a bit more consistently we would be some team especially as we're always dangerous going forward.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

The final boss of defensive lineup for our Semi Final second leg at the Bernabeau in 2025. Holding a 1 - 0 lead from previous leg at VP.

 

                             Ollie

                           McGinn

      Digne        Kamara     Luiz         Cash

            Mings    Pau   Carlos   Konsa

Edited April 15 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[DJBOB]

Three things with the comp video below with some of our passages of play.

 

• The first clip shows the commitment we had to this idea of dragging Arsenal as far up the pitch as possible. Look how wide Diego and Pau split, making it difficult to trap us to one half without covering a lot of ground. Emi acts as the 3rd CB in this scenario because Arsenal press with a 442. Since we're 3 vs 2 in the build up - Emi, Diego, and Pau always had a free man. This exercise is simple in execution but is crucial to why Arsenal started flagging in the second half. Arteta must "dominate" and as a result, he instructs the team to press high and run hard. From :06 to :28 - Trossard has to traverse the entire 18 yard box from end to end chasing the ball around while we execute a training ground exercise. It is dangerous - particularly that Tielemans ball to Diego must be spot on - but key to why Arsenal tired as we forced them to chase. Now - most teams don't chase us this far back. They do not want to get pulled apart. But Arsenal "must" as part of their philosophy and a reason why we started tipping them over in the second half
• Starting at 3:17 we do it again, split the CB's wide from outside the 18 - have the fullbacks sideline to sideline and then occupy the middle with three stacks of 2 - McGinn/Tielemans - Rogers/Moreno - Watkins/Bailey - all at varying levels so that they occupy different passing lines to get into. We get the switch through Tielemans and then Bailey does a clever lay off to leave Zinchenko in the dust. Unfortunately, I've got no confidence in Konsa finishing off the move but still great execution
• And when the press was on or from a goal kick, freeze frame at 2:30 - we toyed with this idea away at City as practice but to evade the pressure - we used Zaniolo/Watkins and to a lesser extent Bailey's hold up play direct. Leaving 3 along the line there prevents us from getting pinned back as we started doing from about January onwards. Unai trusted Zaniolo to win his duels against Ben White and Morgan was there for any knockdowns or second balls. Squint and you'll see yet another layer of Unai's tactical plans - that's essentially a 433 or a 4231 (a formation we have only played for about 20 minutes this year) that we were playing at times. So just when you think he's shown all his cards, he saved a special one for Arsenal and Arteta.

 

[DJBOB]

Unai cooked Arsenal/Arteta precisely because he has a decade of experience at various levels. Arteta, for all of the dominance shown so far, does not vary his teams. Part of that is that most teams set up a certain way to stop Arsenal in a low block or they rely on their high pressure and counter-press schemes to force mistakes and pile on opponents. But all year - Arteta has only shown "respect" to Pep and to a much lesser extent Klopp - by not pressing too high and forming a formidable low/mid block.

Arteta showed little respect for us, deploying Jesus and Havertz, and as a result - slowly losing the midfield battle as we danced around Havertz. Had he deployed a more defensive minded Jorginho or Partey, perhaps Morgan wouldn't have been so free to run around as he did in the middle. It was also little respect to keep chasing and pressing high as we did - even though it was soon becoming obvious that we had figured out how to play around them. But he reacted too late and his players were on toast in the second half from running too hard in the first. 

Unai knew what Arteta would try to do and anticipated it the entire 90 minute timeline. Whereas Arteta showed us little respect and played as if we were a bottom half team instead of 4th in the league.

[MWARLEY2]

13 minutes ago, DJBOB said:

Three things with the comp video below with some of our passages of play.

 

• The first clip shows the commitment we had to this idea of dragging Arsenal as far up the pitch as possible. Look how wide Diego and Pau split, making it difficult to trap us to one half without covering a lot of ground. Emi acts as the 3rd CB in this scenario because Arsenal press with a 442. Since we're 3 vs 2 in the build up - Emi, Diego, and Pau always had a free man. This exercise is simple in execution but is crucial to why Arsenal started flagging in the second half. Arteta must "dominate" and as a result, he instructs the team to press high and run hard. From :06 to :28 - Trossard has to traverse the entire 18 yard box from end to end chasing the ball around while we execute a training ground exercise. It is dangerous - particularly that Tielemans ball to Diego must be spot on - but key to why Arsenal tired as we forced them to chase. Now - most teams don't chase us this far back. They do not want to get pulled apart. But Arsenal "must" as part of their philosophy and a reason why we started tipping them over in the second half
• Starting at 3:17 we do it again, split the CB's wide from outside the 18 - have the fullbacks sideline to sideline and then occupy the middle with three stacks of 2 - McGinn/Tielemans - Rogers/Moreno - Watkins/Bailey - all at varying levels so that they occupy different passing lines to get into. We get the switch through Tielemans and then Bailey does a clever lay off to leave Zinchenko in the dust. Unfortunately, I've got no confidence in Konsa finishing off the move but still great execution
• And when the press was on or from a goal kick, freeze frame at 2:30 - we toyed with this idea away at City as practice but to evade the pressure - we used Zaniolo/Watkins and to a lesser extent Bailey's hold up play direct. Leaving 3 along the line there prevents us from getting pinned back as we started doing from about January onwards. Unai trusted Zaniolo to win his duels against Ben White and Morgan was there for any knockdowns or second balls. Squint and you'll see yet another layer of Unai's tactical plans - that's essentially a 433 or a 4231 (a formation we have only played for about 20 minutes this year) that we were playing at times. So just when you think he's shown all his cards, he saved a special one for Arsenal and Arteta.

 

 

Brilliant insight DJ BOB . Thankyou

I think some games have been planned for months in advance.  City at home was so perfectly executed. Yesterday felt the same .  I expect the Liverpool game will be the same when we use another set up . As much as he is humble he also wants desperately to beat the big managers/ previous clubs. 

 

Edited April 15 by MWARLEY2

[DJBOB]

8 minutes ago, MWARLEY2 said:

Brilliant insight DJ BOB . Thankyou

I think some games have been planned for months in advance.  City at home was so perfectly executed. Yesterday felt the same .  I expect the Liverpool game will be the same when we use another set up . As much as he is humble he also wants desperately to beat the big managers/ previous clubs. 

 

I'm sure he has a game plan for Liverpool, but they are the type of the team that have the personnel to give us problems no matter how much Unai prepares. If they can deliver from deep (Trent or Mac Allister) and have pacey runners in behind (Salah/Diaz/Nunez) then they can punish the mid block and put us behind or launch quick attacks against us. Newcastle and United have very similar profiles.

So despite our dominance against City and Arsenal, we have 0 points from Newcastle/United/Liverpool this year in the league precisely because of the personnel and style of play they have.

[DJBOB]

 

One of the few Twitter tacticos worth a follow and not a blow hard - points out that Arsenal's predictability and imbalance in pressing structure meant that they didn't change their pressing structure to push us towards our right where we are weaker in the build up. This is what United did in their 2nd half away match up to isolate the weaker Diego/Konsa/Dendoncker distribution connection. Konsa - in particular - is very hit or miss when it comes to his distribution.

So while it was still a great win against Arsenal, I would caution against extrapolating too much from our win against Arsenal in that "we can take it to anyone" or "they're just not trying hard enough if they were able to do it against Arsenal."

Arsenal, for as good as they are, have some specific weaknesses that Unai must have spent countless hours reviewing. They lack lots of pace in behind on the wings. They don't have an elite finisher. It says a lot that their top scorer is Saka from the wing. Zinchenko has been torn apart by Arsenal fans. They press in a very specific way. They play in a very similar way except against Pep.

So as good as we were, there are just some clubs we match up better against under Unai - Arsenal, and strangely enough City when we're near full strength. By contrast, we have won once under Unai against United and that had more to do with them still deploying the laziest forward combo in Ronaldo and Rashford. We have drawn once against Liverpool but they have generally had the better of us. Newcastle did the double over us this year. Brentford have given us a torrid time in each match no matter what strength we're at. Clubs with pace in behind and a willingness to sit back continue to give us a difficult time with a combination of our personnel and Unai's tactical style.

So don't be surprised for as elite as we were against Arsenal, that we are somehow confused on how to face Chelsea and Liverpool - teams with dangerous runners in behind and a willingness to play that way.

Edited April 16 by DJBOB

[sne]

Interesting observation from Iraola

Quote

Iraola told the Daily Echo: “I knew that the physical thing was not going to be key because they it's very difficult to open the games against Villa because they keep the game very well under control.

“With the keeper, with Pau (Torres), with (Ezri) Konsa, they have very good structure.

“When they want, they can stop a little bit the game.

“They have confidence in their build up.

“So you could see against Lille, they play extra time, nobody with cramps, nobody really asking for a change.

“If you see the Manchester City game, for example, there’s seven, eight players asking for change.

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/sport/24270029.andoni-iraola-aston-villas-style-play/