The Aston Villa high line thread

[fightoffyour]

Great park

[cheltenham_villa]

its a risky nervous strategy but against Spurs it helps us to apply pressure to the spurs defence and they resorted to long ball football, easily picked up by Mings and Konsa. I dont expect Unai to play it against everyone and i think its likely at some point that someone exploits it. When they do, we need to adapt as well. Exactly what we would all expect Unai to do.

Our loss to Leicester i think they really exposed us playing out from the back and waited for the ball into Kamara and Luiz. We've learnt other ways around that, we can do it here as well. 

 

[The Fun Factory]

Well we have to find something to get nervous about. I am sure Emery has this covered. In Unai we trust.

[KentVillan]

8 hours ago, FLVillan said:

I think what the idiots on the BBC are (also) missing is that we don't play that high in every match.  Unai adjusts it according to the opponent and situation.  Plenty of times we've played in a much deeper block.  

Yeah this was my point about them making Unai out to be a one trick pony.

Your tactics only get "found out" if they are all you play week in, week out. If you adapt from week to week and have 2 or 3 different approaches lined up for mid-game changes, then who cares if each of those tactics is risky against certain opposition? Emery isn't serving up the same ideas every single week.

Be very interesting to see how he approaches the Liverpool game. As others have said, they did annihilate our high line last time, but we are better drilled in it now, so maybe he'll fancy our chances of pulling it off. More likely I think he plays the low block away at Anfield, and we try to do what we did to Spurs in the away fixture.

[duke313]

3 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Yeah this was my point about them making Unai out to be a one trick pony.

Your tactics only get "found out" if they are all you play week in, week out. If you adapt from week to week and have 2 or 3 different approaches lined up for mid-game changes, then who cares if each of those tactics is risky against certain opposition? Emery isn't serving up the same ideas every single week.

Be very interesting to see how he approaches the Liverpool game. As others have said, they did annihilate our high line last time, but we are better drilled in it now, so maybe he'll fancy our chances of pulling it off. More likely I think he plays the low block away at Anfield, and we try to do what we did to Spurs in the away fixture.

I think it will be a compact low block and hit them on the counter down their right when we turn over possession.

[Indigo]

One thing that's annoying about it is that it's not as though Emery hasn't been hailed by a lot of the same people for being big on details and game-planning for specific opponents. It can't both be the case that he tailors his set-up for each team we play but also apparently will consistently play this high line that is bound to get "found out" soon. The line was much higher against Spurs than it has been in other recent games, and it's likely going to change again at some point in the next couple because that's what happens when you have high-level coaches at work. 

[El Segundo]

Even when United beat the high line and scored, it only resulted in a goal because of other factors - a poor (possibly unnecessary) touch by Emi, Moreno being a bit slow to cover Ratface's run, and a lucky deflection that took it over Emi and past Mings.  

[Pinebro]

2 minutes ago, El Segundo said:

Even when United beat the high line and scored, it only resulted in a goal because of other factors - a poor (possibly unnecessary) touch by Emi, Moreno being a bit slow to cover Ratface's run, and a lucky deflection that took it over Emi and past Mings.  

I don't care if we concede a goal from it every now and then.

We will gain more than we will lose from it.

I would say though the United goal, funnily enough was a result of kicking it out long rather than playing out from the back.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Pinebro

[StefanAVFC]

17 hours ago, Keyblade said:

Darwin completely destroyed us in the reverse fixture. He is absolutely rapid. I think we might see him start.

Because of Olsen though, he's glued to his line.

[allani]

3 hours ago, rubberman said:

Do we think the motd pundits have much input into the highlights/analysis or just talk through whatever the producer/editors have put together for them. On a full Saturday they obviously won't have watched all the games and no more than highlights of some so I assume they get given the offside stat and told the clips will be about villa's high line and wing it from there. 

I think it came up during the text commentary of the game on the BBC site but definitely as a "this is something that Villa are doing really well" and that "Spurs were falling into the trap time and time again".  Which then follows with the post match interview with Forever Young when he talks about them practicing and knowing when to hold the line and when not to.  It only turned into a "negative" compliment on the MOTD piece.  Now I guess when you have 3 attackers they are bound to all think "wow look at that we'd have loved that" but they wouldn't have seen the times when players ran from deeper and our line didn't try and hold but fell back and tracked the man.  Part of the tactic is to lull attackers into thinking there is load of space and going too soon.  Players like Son and Kane aren't SO bad that they are going to make bad runs all the time.  When they were running from deeper, our defenders tended to follow them rather than let them go.  So you run from deep into "space" and the defence drops to fill that space.  Next time you try and run from less deep and get caught offside.  It would have been interesting had there been 2 defenders (or at least 1 defender) on to explain how you make this work and how it was great defending not lucky defending against poor attackers.  You don't catch teams offside 50% more than any other team at the same time as having conceded so few goals through luck or attackers having a bad day.  But even so I think Wrighty might have been less "I'd love to have played against this" if the clip had been of Arsenal doing a similar thing.

[bobzy]

5 minutes ago, allani said:

I think it came up during the text commentary of the game on the BBC site but definitely as a "this is something that Villa are doing really well" and that "Spurs were falling into the trap time and time again".  Which then follows with the post match interview with Forever Young when he talks about them practicing and knowing when to hold the line and when not to.  It only turned into a "negative" compliment on the MOTD piece.  Now I guess when you have 3 attackers they are bound to all think "wow look at that we'd have loved that" but they wouldn't have seen the times when players ran from deeper and our line didn't try and hold but fell back and tracked the man.  Part of the tactic is to lull attackers into thinking there is load of space and going too soon.  Players like Son and Kane aren't SO bad that they are going to make bad runs all the time.  When they were running from deeper, our defenders tended to follow them rather than let them go.  So you run from deep into "space" and the defence drops to fill that space.  Next time you try and run from less deep and get caught offside.  It would have been interesting had there been 2 defenders (or at least 1 defender) on to explain how you make this work and how it was great defending not lucky defending against poor attackers.  You don't catch teams offside 50% more than any other team at the same time as having conceded so few goals through luck or attackers having a bad day.  But even so I think Wrighty might have been less "I'd love to have played against this" if the clip had been of Arsenal doing a similar thing.

I don't even think it was highlighted as a negative - unless I misunderstood the analysis?  It seems to be Wright saying that Son and Richarlison (in particular) didn't adapt properly to playing against such a high line and made poorly timed runs.

[DJBOB]

On the face of it, you would expect us not to play a high line against Liverpool. 
 
I don’t know, I just feel like Unai has something up his sleeve. There’s a lot of scouting and data on Liverpool and Klopp is not a manager that changes a lot from week to week. 
 
Risky but we’re going to have to take some risks to get into Europe.

Edited May 16, 2023 by DJBOB

[allani]

20 minutes ago, bobzy said:

I don't even think it was highlighted as a negative - unless I misunderstood the analysis?  It seems to be Wright saying that Son and Richarlison (in particular) didn't adapt properly to playing against such a high line and made poorly timed runs.

Which implies a failure of the attackers rather than the brilliance of the defence.  He did say something along the lines of "I would have loved to be playing against this" and that became the lasting impression.

[bobzy]

1 minute ago, allani said:

Which implies a failure of the attackers rather than the brilliance of the defence.  He did say something along the lines of "I would have loved to be playing against this" and that became the lasting impression.

I think it's fair to say that being offside 9 times in a game is a failure of the attackers (and/or management) to adapt to the opposition tactics.  They similarly mentioned that our line was very good all game.  If the reverse had happened (we played a high line, Spurs attackers constantly broke through not offside) then the defence would be criticised during that analysis rather than the attackers applauded.  That's just how things are discussed in short segments.

It's a very small analysis of what happened during a football match whereby the defenders mentioned held a good, high line and the attackers mentioned constantly ran offside.  The amount of weird bitterness that has come up in this thread because of "the media" is weird, but each to their own.

[allani]

41 minutes ago, bobzy said:

I think it's fair to say that being offside 9 times in a game is a failure of the attackers (and/or management) to adapt to the opposition tactics.  They similarly mentioned that our line was very good all game.  If the reverse had happened (we played a high line, Spurs attackers constantly broke through not offside) then the defence would be criticised during that analysis rather than the attackers applauded.  That's just how things are discussed in short segments.

It's a very small analysis of what happened during a football match whereby the defenders mentioned held a good, high line and the attackers mentioned constantly ran offside.  The amount of weird bitterness that has come up in this thread because of "the media" is weird, but each to their own.

OK.  I guess my feeling was that when the piece started I thought they were going to analyse how well the defence was playing but the impression I got was more that the Spurs attack were poor and that if they had timed their runs properly we would have been destroyed.  With the clips they showed they talked more about what the attackers did wrong rather than the fact that actually the defence got it right (SWP even says to his dad at one point you're only having a go because it is Spurs).  We caught Spurs out more than other teams for sure but our stats over an extended period show that we have both caught the opposition offside much more often than any other team AND we have also conceded fewer goals than most teams (particularly at home).  Indeed very few of the goals we have conceded recently have come directly from balls played behind a very high line where we've got the offside shout wrong.  9 or 10 teams can't all have poor attackers who repeatedly make bad runs against us.  The common denominator behind the stats is our defence.

But my impression is definitely that if it had been Arsenal, Many City, Liverpool or Utd with those stats then the analysis would have talked more about how well the defence did in catching out the attackers rather than spending so much time talking about how the attackers kept mis-timing their runs.

I thought the match commentary was pretty good (the comment about how if Spurs got to half-time only 1 behind was spot on) and the text commentary during the match was similar (us playing Spurs off the park).  For me the issue was the MOTD segment which I thought missed the main point.  I wouldn't have minded if they had even said that it could be high risk because you were leaving yourself open to someone springing the trap - as long as they then pointed out that actually we're running a pretty tight ship under Emery apart from one crazy spell of three games against Leicester, City and Arsenal (and none of those were as a result of playing a high line and getting caught out).

[Delphinho123]

It makes me very, very nervous. 

[FLVillan]

1 hour ago, allani said:

 He did say something along the lines of "I would have loved to be playing against this" and that became the lasting impression.

And that's the funniest part of Wright's "analysis."  He would have been caught offside time and again and would have resorted to berating the linesman and his teammates.  These ex-players in the media talk like they were unstoppable machines who never had off-days.  Wright's inconsistency was what kept him out of the England team for most of his career. He thrived when playing against slow, clumsy centre-halves in and around the box.  

[allani]

27 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

It makes me very, very nervous. 

It should make me very, very nervous too.  But yet every time Spurs "broke" through I was like - "the flag is definitely going up he was miles off".  Risky at Old Trafford or Anfield though where the VAR lines seem to go up hill or round corners....

[allani]

6 minutes ago, FLVillan said:

And that's the funniest part of Wright's "analysis."  He would have been caught offside time and again and would have resorted to berating the linesman and his teammates.  These ex-players in the media talk like they were unstoppable machines who never had off-days.  Wright's inconsistency was what kept him out of the England team for most of his career. He thrived when playing against slow, clumsy centre-halves in and around the box.  

Have to say that I loved Wright as a player.  Would have loved it had he been at Villa.  Not quite sure how we could have played him, Dean Saunders and Dalian Atkinson at the same time - but that would have been insane!

[The_Rev]

3 hours ago, FLVillan said:

And that's the funniest part of Wright's "analysis."  He would have been caught offside time and again and would have resorted to berating the linesman and his teammates.  These ex-players in the media talk like they were unstoppable machines who never had off-days.  Wright's inconsistency was what kept him out of the England team for most of his career. He thrived when playing against slow, clumsy centre-halves in and around the box.  

 

I'm gonna defend Wright here.   He didn't get as many England caps as you might expect for a player of his profile (33 caps, 17 starts, 9 goals)  but Wright was late bloomer who didn't turn pro until he was in his mid twenties and didn't really establish himself as "star" player until he joined Arsenal a couple of months shy of his 29th birthday.  Age wise he was stuck between an established Gary Lineker and an emerging Alan Shearer and the number 9 shirt was something of a closed shop.   A loose analogy today would be how someone like Ivan Toney isn't going to displace Harry Kane even if he signs for Chelsea in the summer and scores 25 goals next season.