Away Form

[DaveAV1]

Just now, DaveAV1 said:

That seems to be true but I’m confident that Unai sees that too and will be doing all he can to put it right. 

We have a run if home games coming up so we may have to wait and see what he can do after a run of expectation raising home results. 

[DaveAV1]

3 minutes ago, DaveAV1 said:

That seems to be true but I’m confident that Unai sees that too and will be doing all he can to put it right. 

As all managers say though, there’s only so much they can do once the players cross the line, then they must take some responsibility themselves too. 

[oishiiniku_uk]

11 minutes ago, DaveAV1 said:

That seems to be true but I’m confident that Unai sees that too and will be doing all he can to put it right. 

I think Unai is doing an incredible job, but nobody is above criticism. And the thing that concerns me is that there seems (for the most part) to be only 1 approach to playing regardless of whether we are at home or away, and regardless of the opponent. In theory it seems laudable that we want to take the game to the opponent, no matter the circumstances, but there's a growing body of evidence that away from Villa Park against opponents who can easily exploit our style of play, we are getting found out. 

[NeilS]

51 minutes ago, oishiiniku_uk said:

4 away games out of 8 (inc. Europe) where we've conceded within the first 5 minutes and ended up losing. It feels like in all of those cases that the game plan immediately goes out the window, we push higher up the pitch to try and get back in the game, and get caught on the counter even more often. I'd like to see us be a bit more pragmatic in the early stages of away games (not sure it will happen though).

 

This is a pattern I have noticed, and I am not sure why it happens so regularly. Rule number 1 is to quieten the crowd in an away game by keeping it tight and frustrating the opposition. We do seem to have a gift for the opposition a bit too often for my liking, and it goes back further than Unai Emery's tenure here. We were doing the same during Deano's time as well.

[VillanousOne]

We have to work out a way to unlock defences centrally, or move our fwds wide, every time we seem to fail miserably it's because players like Cash and Digne get double marked and teams park the bus. We can't play slow ponderous football if it doesn't draw the team out like it didn't work with Forest.

Diaby and Watkins were barely involved because no one was trying to play centrally, Diaby kept coming further and further back to touch the ball.

It's a quite easy tactic to foil us away from home, push/pull us over every time we are on the ball, our midfield never gets fouls give for them especially Doug. Then double mark the fullbacks, sit back, block and break with long balls into the channels. It's surprisingly easy considering how great we are meant to be.

[RichW]

Do feel like we watch two different teams when you compare the home and away form. Heard on a podcast dismorning that it is 2 wins from 10 which isn't great and with them being Burnley and Chelsea (which could have gone either way). I guess there is some difficult games in that run; Liverpool twice, Wolves twice, Newcastle, Brentford and Forest. Doesn't give much confidence for Spurs away I guess.

It just puts more pressure on keeping the home form going strong if we can't pick up wins away from home and you'd imagine at some point this season teams are going to figure out how to frustrate Villa at Villa park. 

[KAZZAM]

I feel like we need to play quite different when away vs how we play at home. 

Our setup and how we play is to susceptible to counter attacking  football or over the top football.When we are away it gives the home team extra enthusiasm and we end up conceding soft goals. 

We've seen 3-4-3 this season used a bit and to good and bad effect I think we should maybe try look at it again. 

[VillanousOne]

3 minutes ago, KAZZAM said:

I feel like we need to play quite different when away vs how we play at home. 

Our setup and how we play is to susceptible to counter attacking  football or over the top football.When we are away it gives the home team extra enthusiasm and we end up conceding soft goals. 

We've seen 3-4-3 this season used a bit and to good and bad effect I think we should maybe try look at it again. 

against Wolves we sacrificed a fwd in order to be more difficult to beat away from home against our bogey team and it kind of worked, as we ground out a draw, may aswell try this tactic more often and then use subs to go for the win when legs tire.

I think luck and injuries conspired against us vs barcodes and plop, but we have to know when to attack and when to park the bus and when we are a goal down we do neither.

[Zero7]

I think we will be fine once Moreno and JJ are back, will give us more options to play a different way. 

[MikeMcKenna]

I am still not sure why it went so badly wrong yesterday, other than possibly we were too cocky going into the game. Being away from home, I wonder if the over confidence is skin deep? The number of times we lost one on ones was shocking and across the pitch we were easily knocked off the ball. 

 

 

 

[cheltenham_villa]

i think if you looked at the stats, we didnt really play any different away yesterday to many games at home. The key moments just didnt go for us. Conceding so early really cost us and were not a great side at coming from behind. It means teams can sit even deeper.

I think away from home, teams will go at us early with the crowd behind them, i think we could be better at shutting that down, absorbing pressure and playing out later. But that not how Unai has decided to go.

[turvontour]

I think ideally we should replicate the home form for the away form.

Get the league title wrapped up by early March.

[DJBOB]

On 06/11/2023 at 07:29, cheltenham_villa said:

i think if you looked at the stats, we didnt really play any different away yesterday to many games at home. The key moments just didnt go for us. Conceding so early really cost us and were not a great side at coming from behind. It means teams can sit even deeper.

I think away from home, teams will go at us early with the crowd behind them, i think we could be better at shutting that down, absorbing pressure and playing out later. But that not how Unai has decided to go.

I agree with this and that there's an element of just not being up for it in the first 10 minutes of some of these away matches. Looking at the goals individually from the away games (Newcastle and Liverpool I don't particularly count towards this although Liverpool also scored an early unusual goal that set us back).

• Burnley we handled with ease
• Chelsea we still played our high line and they were just ineffective
• Legia scores off a cross where we vastly outnumber them along the back line. Just no one marking
• Wolves we objectively played more defensively to start
• AZ we picked apart with ease
• Forest scores off another low percentage shot but there are plenty of players back

There's a certain element of just random variance there. It's not as if we were cracked open with runners free. We had plenty of players back to not give up those early goals and either by incompetence (Digne and Lenglet not picking up at Legia) or luck (Aina will probably not score again this season).

The problem for me is that we are not and have not, under Unai, been a team that comes from behind. Being able to cause calamity and get something lucky in the box has really not been in our wheel house and it's not hard to see why given our personnel. It was at home but look how difficult it was for us to finally crack Zrinjski open. So, for me, that is where Unai needs to find a solution.

If there's one thing that will hold us back from champions league is that we are not very strong in that facet of the game (forcing the ball over the line in a packed box) and I'm not sure we have the personnel this year to do so. The goals we score are works of art but to place top 4, there's an element of forcing your own luck in the opponent box that all the great teams have.

Edited November 7, 2023 by DJBOB

[cheltenham_villa]

12 hours ago, DJBOB said:

I agree with this and that there's an element of just not being up for it in the first 10 minutes of some of these away matches. Looking at the goals individually from the away games (Newcastle and Liverpool I don't particularly count towards this although Liverpool also scored an early unusual goal that set us back).

• Burnley we handled with ease
• Chelsea we still played our high line and they were just ineffective
• Legia scores off a cross where we vastly outnumber them along the back line. Just no one marking
• Wolves we objectively played more defensively to start
• AZ we picked apart with ease
• Forest scores off another low percentage shot but there are plenty of players back

There's a certain element of just random variance there. It's not as if we were cracked open with runners free. We had plenty of players back to not give up those early goals and either by incompetence (Digne and Lenglet not picking up at Legia) or luck (Aina will probably not score again this season).

The problem for me is that we are not and have not, under Unai, been a team that comes from behind. Being able to cause calamity and get something lucky in the box has really not been in our wheel house and it's not hard to see why given our personnel. It was at home but look how difficult it was for us to finally crack Zrinjski open. So, for me, that is where Unai needs to find a solution.

If there's one thing that will hold us back from champions league is that we are not very strong in that facet of the game (forcing the ball over the line in a packed box) and I'm not sure we have the personnel this year to do so. The goals we score are works of art but to place top 4, there's an element of forcing your own luck in the opponent box that all the great teams have.

I do wonder if the injuries have harmed us a bit here. The people were bringing off the bench to try and change games are often similar types of players. Buendia would have given us something different with his intensity, Ramsey with his directness (and also probably means Zaniolo and Bailey would be available from the bench), Moreno i think speaks for himself and I think even Mings would have meant Pau could be used in a more attacking role.

We've got a good starting 11 but outside that, changes feel quite like for like. As many others have said, we are a work in progress.

[Spoony]

On 22/09/2023 at 08:55, AVTuco said:

We need a good start and score first. Then we're very difficult to beat.

This is it isn’t it. I find it very bizarre. I do get it’s harder to play away from home and tactics need to change a bit but what I don’t get is the weird lethargy are players play with away from home, similar to how they play in cup games. Where’s the rocket in their arse that they have at home these days??

[TRO]

On 06/11/2023 at 10:12, NeilS said:

This is a pattern I have noticed, and I am not sure why it happens so regularly. Rule number 1 is to quieten the crowd in an away game by keeping it tight and frustrating the opposition. We do seem to have a gift for the opposition a bit too often for my liking, and it goes back further than Unai Emery's tenure here. We were doing the same during Deano's time as well.

That is true.

Our build up play from the back at times is so slow....nothing wrong with playing out from the back, but the tempo, is too slow, and the players can be got at and dispossessed....move it quicker, and we are harder to close down

[Stephen_Evans]

Non-elite (but working hard to get there) team in “not quite as good away as at home” shock!

[El Segundo]

There are home only and away only tables on Footystats and SoccerStats. 

This season we are top of the Home table on goal difference with same points as City, Liverpool and Newcastle.  Newcastle have played 6, the rest 5.

We're 13th in the away table, level on points with Brentford in 8th, as well as Everton, West Ham, Wolves and Brighton.   We've played 6, one more than Brentford, Brighton and Everton.

If you're away form is not as good as Everton's I'm not sure it's anywhere near good enough for top 5.

Last season we finished 6th in the home table and 9th in the away table.  In the latter we had the same points as Fulham, Liverpool and Spurs in 6-8th.  We have to allow for Gerrard's best attempts to have us near the bottom of both, but our last four away games following the win at Leicester yielded only 2 points and 2 goals.

I think our away form is a concern if we are aiming for CL places. 

As others have said a big problem is not being switched on and fully focussed at the start of each half and this is especially true away from home.  

 

     

[TRO]

On 22/09/2023 at 07:42, It's Your Round said:

No, not for me. 
 

From the last 12, we’ve W4, D2, L5.

And especially with our home form. If we matched the away form to the home form we’d win the league!

 

Perish the thought.

[TRO]

On 05/11/2023 at 16:46, thejoker said:

We’re a bit powder puff away from home this season. I’m sure Emery knows best, but maybe a more pragmatic approach would suit us better. 

spot on.