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By rights, Aston Villa should be playing their first Champions League game of the season this week. Instead, they're 19th in the Premier League and are the only side in the top 7 divisions of English football still to score a goal this season. How the hell does that happen?Adam Clery examines their start to the campaign, and how they played when at their free-scoring best, and shows why this might be a bigger problem than just 'a slow start'.
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00:00Right, hello everybody, welcome to the Adam Cleary Football Channel, Adam Cleary obviously,
00:04and my plan for today's video, right, was either Chelsea starting to look like title challengers,
00:10Liverpool finally getting their act together, Manchester City humiliating Man United,
00:15or Man United having another one of those, like, false dawn good results against the top side.
00:22But obviously, none of that happened, did it?
00:25So instead, let's have a look at what the f*** is wrong with Aston Villa.
00:32Now just really quickly before we start, right, a reminder that we have launched,
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01:04over there if you want that. But we'll say we'll talk more about that later.
01:09Right now, it's Villa, because this, this is not going well.
01:14So the first thing you have to remember is that Aston Villa are genuinely one of the Premier
01:19League's elite sides. Were it not for a freak result slash actual robbery on the last game
01:25of the season, they would be playing Barcelona this week and not Newcastle, and that is coming
01:30from a Newcastle fan. But instead, they sit 19th in the table on two points, which is obviously
01:36not, like, a massive deal after only four games, but the real cause for concern is this bit here.
01:44Zero goals. They are the only team in the top seven divisions of English football yet to find
01:52the back of the net. That is, like, 150, 160 clubs. That is an insane thing. So what we're looking
01:59at
01:59here is whether or not this is an actual problem with actual causes and possibly even actual solutions,
02:05or it's just a bit of bad luck. And not to spoil the rest of the video for you, pals,
02:12right, but
02:15it's an actual problem. Yeah. Now we are going to get very nerdy and very in-depth to look at
02:20exactly what it is that's going on of Aston Villa this season, but I just want to illustrate very
02:25quickly why this should not be getting just brushed off as too early in the season to worry about.
02:32Villa had what looked like a really advantageous set of opening fixtures. Like, on paper, that is a real
02:38chance to set a marker down, start well, get nine, maybe even 12 points, get some momentum before the
02:45fixture crunch of European and domestic cup start. But if you will take the logic that a good way to
02:51measure a team's progress, one way or the other, is to look at like-for-like fixtures across seasons,
02:57then it makes for some pretty grim reading. Last season, they battered Newcastle at home. They beat
03:05Brentford away. They drew with Crystal Palace and then they won at Everton. That is 10 points across
03:11those four games, scoring eight goals. But now, obviously, it's only two points and zero goals
03:19scored. So even if they were to click their fingers, steady the ship and just sort of revert
03:23to type, they're already eight points behind where they were with the same fixtures last season. And
03:30again, obviously, this is very imperfect logic, but Aston Villa, eight points down, is nowhere near
03:37the European places. It would put them like ninth or tenth. Or, to put that another way, just to get
03:41back to where they want to be, they now have to somehow find three new wins in amongst all of
03:48these
03:48bad results. And if you look at them, other than maybe like Ipswich here or Wolves, they didn't have a
03:54lot of, like, glaringly bad results. There's not a lot of wrongs they can really right. But that, obviously,
04:00is a future problem. And the present one is very much that they have not scored a single goal. Just
04:07for a
04:08really quick bit of balance, though, right, the problem is not that they've suddenly become a bad team. Like,
04:13four goals conceded is fine. It's the same as Liverpool. It's the same as Manchester City. Like, if you look
04:20at
04:20the other teams that are down that part of the table and are probably going to stay down that part
04:24of the table, Villa are, defensively speaking, a total outlier there. So that does bode well, but
04:34obviously, the goals. I was going to, you know, kick it up the other end and just put one right
04:40in
04:40that f***ing goal hole, but no dice. So then, what actually is the problem here? Well, if you're not
04:45scoring any goals, one of two things tends to be wrong, right? Either you're being wasteful in front
04:51of goal and you are not taking your chances, or you are not even creating any chances. And this is,
04:59and you may just have to trust me here, one of those areas where XG suddenly becomes really,
05:04really useful. Because if we rank the league by shots, Villa aren't great, but they're clearly
05:10doing something. They've had more than Palace, who've started really well, more than Sunderland,
05:15who've hit the ground running. Not great. Not where they'd want to be, but that's okay. And they're
05:20also still controlling games pretty well. You rank the league by possession and Villa are pretty much
05:25exactly where they'd want to be there. They're fifth. They're seeing about as much of the ball
05:29as their game plan tells you they should. But then, you have a little look at the XG, and as
05:35well as
05:35being your dad's favourite thing to call woke nonsense when he's watching Match of the Day,
05:40measures the alleged quality of the chances you are having. Villa, on a per 90-minute basis,
05:47so just game by game, are currently posting relegation numbers there. Like 0.7 per 90
05:54is less than Southampton, Ipswich and Leicester managed last season. And while, yes, we have to keep
06:01this in mind, is only four games. Those are four games where you would make the marginal,
06:07if not massive, favourites. The numbers say they should probably have scored like three goals by
06:14now, so there is obviously an element of bad finishing. But given they're clearly creating
06:19some chances and having a decent number of attempts, the disparity between their position here
06:23and their position here tells you, as clear as Christmas, that the problem is that they are not
06:30creating good chances. So let us have a little look at why that is, right? So Aston Villa,
06:36at their absolute best, are a team who specialise in baiting the opposition on, playing through their
06:42press and then exploiting the space that leaves in behind. They almost always play a 4-2-3-1,
06:48but the idea is you end up with a front five where one of the full backs gets up in
06:54support.
06:54Then you shuffle into a back three and you have this 3-2 base. These lads are all very comfortable
06:59having the ball at the back and when you try and take it off them, they find one of these
07:03two
07:03somewhere in the middle of the pitch. They get turned and then they feed any of these five players
07:09either wide or through the middle and that is how they attack you. But the problem is they have
07:14been doing that since more or less the day Emery took over and they're still doing that now.
07:21So we've got this example from the Bournemouth game last season, right? They've got the ball at
07:25the back. They've moved from the 4 into this 3-2. That is their in-possession shape. Now if I
07:31remember
07:31rightly, this is quite late in the game. They made a number of substitutions. John McGinn is on the
07:36right. Ian Mattson is on the left. They are part of that forward five. They've just both dropped deep
07:41to try and get the ball. So ignore them for now, right? They'll abate the opposition on. They find
07:46the first pass between the lines. They get turned and they're away. And when they get into the
07:52opposition half, look immediately at how wide this attack is. Leon Bailey's pulled out here. Mattson's
07:59getting up into this space here. Bournemouth aren't sure what to do and that indecision allows Rodgers
08:05to steam through the middle of them. They find Mattson wide left. He crosses to Bailey outright.
08:10Barkley is the one who hooks it in. But even before that, look how they go from this position
08:15here to six players in the box. And the reason this works so well is because it manufactures space
08:22in two different ways. Like first off, when you bait a press on, it creates a little pocket of space
08:28in the midfield so you can find your players there. But then when you are attacking, your wide players
08:33are really wide. So it creates space in between the defenders. And you go back through the last two
08:39seasons, you'll see more of these chances and goals than you will be able to count. Like make
08:44space here with the buildup. Get into it with a ball to feet. Get turned. Stretch out the back line
08:50and either go around them if they go narrow to protect the centre or go through them if they
08:56spread out to mark the men. This is the Emery Villa goal TM. But if you fast forward to the
09:03games
09:03they've played this season, you are not seeing this. This is the scenario they were faced with
09:09from the very first minutes against Crystal Palace. Teams know better now than to commit players into
09:15pressuring that back line and instead just look to cut off the passes into the middle, which is what
09:21allows them to get turned and start attacking up the pits. That's been completely taken away from them.
09:27This is against Everton. There is three at the back. They have the two sitting in front,
09:31but Everton are not getting suckered in by putting pressure on the ball here. They're just making
09:36sure that it cannot go from here into here. And if it does, if they still find a way through,
09:43that whoever's receiving it can do naught but pass it back the way it came. You don't let them get
09:49it.
09:49And if you do, you don't let them turn. And they're still trying to do this. Don't get me wrong.
09:53Now,
09:54this is about 12 minutes in to that game. McGinn does find a little pocket. He turns it around the
09:59corner first time and then they try to get Watkins away through the middle. Dinier is trying to stretch
10:04them out on the left-hand side, but it's just, it's not effective. Teams are waiting for them to do
10:09it.
10:09They stop it at source and if they can't, they react really well to it. And that is problem number
10:15one. But problem number two is this. Here, they finally get through Everton's mid-block and into the
10:22final third. And there are five attacking players, but what do you notice? You could throw a towel,
10:29admittedly an enormous towel. It would have to be like 15, 20 yards across, but still a towel over
10:35the options they have in the final third. Matty Cash is the width, but he's lagging well behind
10:41because he's coming up from fullback. So there's no pass out to the right. John McGinn, who could be
10:46there because he started on the right, has come in field because he wants to come in field. That's how
10:51he plays his football. Buendita, who started on the left, could be out on the left, but he has also
10:56come in field because he wants to come in field because that's how he plays his football.
11:01Watkins plays through the middle and Rodgers plays through the middle. So everything is just going
11:05through the middle and thus Everton can be tighter than a cat's arse getting a fright in this situation
11:12because they've only got to worry about this space here and they've got four players to do it.
11:16Against Crystal Palace, they tried Gessand and Marlon out wide, who are two players with the pace to
11:22stretch you out and cause a few more problems. But this is their entire combined contribution
11:29across those 90 minutes. And you might not even realize this looking at it. They're going this way.
11:34That is the direction of attack. And yet all they muster is one overhit cross that you just kept in
11:41play and there's one ball in the box. But everything else from your two wide players is just a short
11:47backwards pass. And this little graphic, I should point out, also includes successful take-ons.
11:55You cannot see them because there are none. So what I'm trying to say is that this is not wide
12:01play
12:01that will trouble a Premier League defence. And this is not wide play at all. And so back to the
12:08discovery we are trying to make here, teams are having a lot of joy just bogging Aston Villa down
12:14through the centre of the pitch. And if you are able to restrict a team in the only area they're
12:21really trying to attack, then you will massively restrict the quality of chances they're able to
12:27create. Hence the quality of chances Aston Villa are creating being incredibly low, double hence the fact
12:35they haven't scored a single goal. And you might think, listening to all this, this is a big critique
12:41of the manager. He's allowed his tactics to go stale. Teams have figured him out and he's not been
12:46inventive enough to come up with new ideas. But I actually have a lot of sympathy with both Villa
12:51and Emery here. And while losing Bailey and Diaby was not seen as a massive deal because neither of them
12:57were pulling up any trees, particularly in terms of numbers, they were genuine wide threats.
13:03Even if they weren't playing that well, you still couldn't leave them isolated one-on-one
13:07and they still would be taking up really dangerous positions. Jacob Ramsey had a bit about him when
13:12he was out on the left. Marcus Rashford added a whole new dimension when he came in and none
13:17of those four players are here now. I don't get me wrong, Jadon Sancho is potentially a very exciting
13:23signing. He'll go out on the left or possibly even on the right, but just like they've already got,
13:28will be doing so with an eye to moving into the centre of the pitch. So it doesn't solve
13:32that problem. Harvey Elliott's an unbelievable bit of business and can fill in anywhere you want
13:38him to, but also is at his best when he is at his central-est. Those are two signings for
13:45me that
13:45absolutely smack of who are the best players we can get in under the circumstances, not who are the
13:52best players we can get in for specifically what we need. And don't get me wrong, they're going to
13:56score goals eventually, like somewhere something's going to drop for somebody. But the underlying issue
14:01being that the chances being created are more often than not really, really bad,
14:07will not magically fix itself. They need to come up with new ways of breaking down the opposition,
14:13of making good opportunities for the players available. And that is the challenge to Aston
14:19Villa this season. Can they reinvent what it is they're doing without falling apart at the seams?
14:25So, yeah, like the bottom line here is four games into a season is no time to be panicking particularly,
14:31but having every single one of your attacking players fit and available and favourable fixtures,
14:36and then still being about as threatening as a polite handshake, is a major cause for concern.
14:43And they do have to address this. And that's it. That's the entire video. I await with bated breath to
14:49see what the Emory solution is. And look forward, Aston Villa fans, to producing a follow-up video called,
14:54How Unai Emory Fixed Aston Villa. I'm rooting for you. Honest I am. And if you would like to watch
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15:47But until next time though, Aston Villa fans, please let me know what you make of this whole
15:51mess in the comments below. Is there something I've missed? Is it just Ollie Watkins is really
15:54terrible? Do you actually think he played really well against Everton? Because I didn't, but I'd love
15:59to hear your opinions. Regardless, get them down below, subscribe to the channel, follow all the
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16:10This is my job. Goodbye.
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