Aston Villa (H) Post Match Analysis

[StriderHiryu]

 

Here's my latest video breakdown and tactical analysis of the Leicester City vs Aston Villa game. The video is the best way to go through my analysis, but this thread has extended examples and video / gifs to make the examples and talking points a bit clearer.

 

Lineup
 

 

Steve Cooper opted for a defensive looking lineup with 3 physical midfielders and Jordan Ayew in the team. Whilst this lacked creativity it did provide an aggressive foundation to build upon and meant that Leicester had the most possession of any Premier League they have been involved in so far and did a decent job in knocking Villa out of their stride.

 

Aggressive Pressing

 

 

^ Between the 3CDMs and Ayew, we were better at making the most of 50/50s and second contacts. In this sequence, Winks, Skipp and Ayew all do well to recover the ball and get us back on our way. Ayew is pressed by 5 players but wins the free kick and gets Onana carded.

 

 

^ Some more examples of pushing up high, being aggressive and either stopping Villa from playing out or forcing them into a mistake.

 

Overall for the first time this season in the league, this gave us a solid foundation to build on and made the game extremely competitve. But all of a sudden Villa had a bit of momentum and took the lead. What happened?

 

Unforced Errors

 

 

 

^ The Premier League is brutal. Unlike the Championship, mistakes are punished heavily. Ollie Watkins should perhaps already have put Villa ahead, but after starting to take over in the game, we started making unforced errors to give Villa chances and momentum. Here Fatawu recieves the ball with plenty of time and space on the ball, and an easy, uncontested pass to Winks available if he wants it. But then he dwells on the ball, gets robbed and all of a sudden it's panic stations for Leicester.

 

 

^ Just a few minutes later, here's an even worse example. Faes has plenty of time on the ball to make a pass, but takes too long and is robbed by Rogers. Hermansen again bails out his team after a totally unforced error.

 

Villa Goal

 

 

These unforced errors compound themselves with the first Villa goal. Skipp has an easy pass back to Faes or Hermansen but gets caught on it. He runs back to retrive the ball and gives away a free kick. I don't think it should have been a free kick, but it was a mistake prior to the challenge that led to the situation in the first place.

 

 

Fair play to Villa here, it's a clever set piece that catches us by surprise. I don't have much to say about the defending here, my issue is that if we cut out the unforced errors, this goal doesn't happen, and it's Leicester in the driving seat.

 

Substitutions in the Premier League Change Games

 

 

^ Despite being a goal down, Leicester started the second half well, with an even higher and more aggressive press. Whilst these subs were probably planned, Emery seemed to sense the danger and replaced Onana who was on a yellow and replaced Watkins who had a bit of an off day. On paper losing these two players was good for Leicester, but it felt like the sign of a great manager sensing the state of the game.

 

 

^ And just two minutes later, both subs, Barkley and Duran are involved in the second Villa goal. This felt against the run of play, but shows the importance of subs. Could Okoli or even Faes do better? In this instance I think it's a brilliant header by Duran.

 

Cooper Shuffles the Pack

 

 

^ After going two down, Cooper had to make changes and go for broke. On came the attacking trio of Mavididi, Buonanotte and El Khannouss.

 

 

^ Once the creative players came on, Leicester looked like a different animal. Mavididi had Bogarde on toast and Buonanaotte is capable of quality. However, I also want to point out that Ndidi who was still on the pitch here is able to use his physicality to keep the ball for Leicester for Facundo to score. Being able to bully opponents in the top flight is important.

 

 

^ El Khanouss linking with Kristiansen. BEK has that Maddison like quality of drifting into the right spaces and playing the right weight of pass at the right time. Bogarde got carded and Emery immediately hauled him off as the impressive left hand side of Leicester's attack, reinforced by Stephy Mavididi started to take over.

 

 

^ A great move late on from Leicester.  Debutant El Khanouss finding some great spaces and pulling the strings. Buonanotte manages to find space and turn in a brilliant area, but sadly overhits his pass. This and some other examples maybe felt a bit like "trying too hard" rather than keeping our cool and being patient. There's a lot to like about this play though, the aggression to win the ball back, the movement and quick passing, etc.

 

Final Thoughts

 

Leicester improved a lot in this game compared to the Fulham game, with more possesion and control than our previous league games. However, we didn't test Villa enough and their quality shone through when needed. To win games we need more creativity, but also need to cut out our unforced errors.

 

 

This next run of games is huge. Other than the Arsenal game, we need to take points to have any chance to survive, and even draws against some teams might not be enough. We've been competitive, and not look overawed. But we need to put it all together and grind out some results!

 

 

 

Edited 1 September by StriderHiryu

[ronnup]

Amazing work, thanks for posting. We need to win 2 of these next 4 league games, minimum. If we don't get a win out of any of them, we need a change. 

[StriderHiryu]

3 minutes ago, ronnup said:

Amazing work, thanks for posting. We need to win 2 of these next 4 league games, minimum. If we don't get a win out of any of them, we need a change. 

Is that a change of manager or a change of approach?

 

Cooper was not my first choice for manager, but speaking objectively from a coaching perspective, I see quite clear structures and patterns of play. The team is generally much better on set pieces, with the goal in this game being very creative. He could definitely be braver, though he did finally take Cordova-Reid out of the team.

 

I see similarities to the 14/15 season where we were competitve in many games, but didn't win many. What changed in that season is when we attacked and went physical, and weren't scared to lose any more. That's what I think we must do in the next few games, as we are probably going to need 12 or 13 wins to stay up.

 

Regardless of who is in charge, the quality of our squad will always be an issue. Spurs best player was Maddison.. who used to play for us. You could argue Villa's best player was Tielemans... who used to play for us. This is one reason why such teams are so much better, whereas we are a shadow of our former selves.

[Tielemans63]

18 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

 

Here's my latest video breakdown and tactical analysis of the Leicester City vs Aston Villa game. The video is the best way to go through my analysis, but this thread has extended examples and video / gif to make the examples and talking points a bit clearer.

 

Lineup
 

 

Steve Cooper opted for a defensive looking lineup with 3 physical midfielders and Jordan Ayew in the team. Whilst this lacked creativity it did provide an aggressive foundation to build upon and meant that Leicester had the most possession of any Premier League they have been involved in so far and did a decent job in knocking Villa out of their stride.

 

Aggressive Pressing

 

 

^ Between the 3CDMs and Ayew, we were better at making the most of 50/50s and second contacts. In this sequence, Winks, Skipp and Ayew all do well to recover the ball and get us back on our way. Ayew is pressed by 5 players but wins the free kick and gets Onana carded.

 

 

^ Some more examples of pushing up high, being aggressive and either stopping Villa from playing out or forcing them into a mistake.

 

Overall for the first time this season in the league, this gave us a solid foundation to build on and made the game extremely competitve. But all of a sudden Villa had a bit of momentum and took the lead. What happened?

 

Unforced Errors

 

 

 

^ The Premier League is brutal. Unlike the Championship, mistakes are punished heavily. Ollie Watkins should perhaps already have put Villa ahead, but after starting to take over in the game, we started making unforced errors to give Villa chances and momentum. Here Fatawu recieves the ball with plenty of time and space on the ball, and an easy, uncontested pass to Winks available if he wants it. But then he dwells on the ball, gets robbed and all of a sudden it's panic stations for Leicester.

 

 

^ Just a few minutes later, here's an even worse example. Faes has plenty of time on the ball to make a pass, but takes too long and is robbed by Rogers. Hermansen again bails out his team after a totally unforced error.

 

Villa Goal

 

 

These unforced errors compound themselves with the first Villa goal. Skipp has an easy pass back to Faes or Hermansen but gets caught on it. He runs back to retrive the ball and gives away a free kick. I don't think it should have been a free kick, but it was a mistake prior to the challenge that led to the situation in the first place.

 

 

Fair play to Villa here, it's a clever set piece that catches us by surprise. I don't have much to say about the defending here, my issue is that if we cut out the unforced errors, this goal doesn't happen, and it's Leicester in the driving seat.

 

Substitutions in the Premier League Change Games

 

 

^ Despite being a goal down, Leicester started the second half well, with an even higher and more aggressive press. Whilst these subs were probably planned, Emery seemed to sense the danger and replaced Onana who was on a yellow and replaced Watkins who had a bit of an off day. On paper losing these two players was good for Leicester, but it felt like the sign of a great manager sensing the state of the game.

 

 

^ And just two minutes later, both subs, Barkley and Duran are involved in the second Villa goal. This felt against the run of play, but shows the importance of subs. Could Okoli or even Faes do better? In this instance I think it's a brilliant header by Duran.

 

Cooper Shuffles the Pack

 

 

^ After going two down, Cooper had to make changes and go for broke. On came the attacking trio of Mavididi, Buonanotte and El Khannouss.

 

 

^ Once the creative players came on, Leicester looked like a different animal. Mavididi had Bogarde on toast and Buonanaotte is capable of quality. However, I also want to point out that Ndidi who was still on the pitch here is able to use his physicality to keep the ball for Leicester for Facundo to score. Being able to bully opponents in the top flight is important.

 

 

^ El Khanouss linking with Kristiansen. BEK has that Maddison like quality of drifting into the right spaces and playing the right weight of pass at the right time. Bogarde got carded and Emery immediately hauled him off as the impressive left hand side of Leicester's attack, reinforced by Stephy Mavididi started to take over.

 

 

^ A great move late on from Leicester.  Debutant El Khanouss finding some great spaces and pulling the strings. Buonanotte manages to find space and turn in a brilliant area, but sadly overhits his pass. This and some other examples maybe felt a bit like "trying too hard" rather than keeping our cool and being patient. There's a lot to like about this play though, the aggression to win the ball back, the movement and quick passing, etc.

 

Final Thoughts

 

Leicester improved a lot in this game compared to the Fulham game, with more possesion and control than our previous league games. However, we didn't test Villa enough and their quality shone through when needed. To win games we need more creativity, but also need to cut out our unforced errors.

 

 

This next run of games is huge. Other than the Arsenal game, we need to take points to have any chance to survive, and even draws against some teams might not be enough. We've been competitive, and not look overawed. But we need to put it all together and grind out some results!

 

Superb work 

[Izzy]

Superb as always Strider.

 

P.S. Did one of the Villa subs come on and then get subbed off later in the game or did I dream that?

[fox_favourite]

Great work, again. Very well presented. Please keep it up

[fox_favourite]

Just now, Izzy said:

Superb as always Strider.

 

P.S. Did one of the Villa subs come on and then get subbed off later in the game or did I dream that?

Nope, you weren't dreaming it was Ramsey who came on for the injured Bailey earlier in the game. Then got subbed second half. 

[Iran]

Great thread!

 

[Iran]

2 minutes ago, Izzy said:

Superb as always Strider.

 

P.S. Did one of the Villa subs come on and then get subbed off later in the game or did I dream that?

Yeah, I remember the match commentator pointing that out and the player subbed off looked very angry.

[StriderHiryu]

3 minutes ago, Izzy said:

Superb as always Strider.

 

P.S. Did one of the Villa subs come on and then get subbed off later in the game or did I dream that?

It was Jacob Ramsey, who looked pissed off because he got the assist for the Onana goal.

 

However, it was the right move. And that's part of the analysis. Given that Emery made his subs at 60, the first set were probably planned, but after Bogarde got carded, Emerey immediately made changes to both sides of the pitch to deal with Buonanotte and Mavididi that came on, and I think that protected all 3 points for Villa. That's why he's a top class manager, he's got a great understanding of the current gamestate.

 

I don't think Cooper was poor at subs in this game, but suspect that one of the creative 10's at 45, or making changes at 60 along with Emery would have been better for us.

[davieG]

19 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

It was Jacob Ramsey, who looked pissed off because he got the assist for the Onana goal.

 

However, it was the right move. And that's part of the analysis. Given that Emery made his subs at 60, the first set were probably planned, but after Bogarde got carded, Emerey immediately made changes to both sides of the pitch to deal with Buonanotte and Mavididi that came on, and I think that protected all 3 points for Villa. That's why he's a top class manager, he's got a great understanding of the current gamestate.

 

I don't think Cooper was poor at subs in this game, but suspect that one of the creative 10's at 45, or making changes at 60 along with Emery would have been better for us.

The subs should have been when we were clearly on top and before their subs and goal. It may not be normal to sub when on top and in control but considering we had little or no creativity we looked like we were never going to benefit from the dominance,

[lcfc_forever]

Excellent work @StriderHiryu!

 

I'd reached the same conclusion as you, however wild it might sound, for Buononotte to come into the team ahead of Fatawu. Surely then Ricardo comes into the team, with Justin switching to the left. At his peak, Justin was arguably one of the top 3 left backs in the league and has got a lot of experience playing there, and has played as one of 3 CBs. I also wouldn't be surprised if Coady came into the team alongside Okoli for experience.

 

Buonanotte, BEK and Mavididi could be very exciting upfront behind the striker, and then we have Fatawu and Ayew/Vardy off the bench to finish the game.  

 

[Pita]

Great article very well put together keep it up. 

[Crinklyfox]

I watched the video from start to finish.  It was a delight to see such a well thought-out review.  Please continue as often as you can, I will look forward to your future analyses.

 

We are in a transitional phase at present with new players coming in.  Whilst some of the attributes of those players are already apparent I don't think we know enough about them yet to come up with a 'best XI'.  The other unknown is how well individual players will gel most efficiently as a unit.   Hopefully we'll continue to get your thoughts on that in videos to come.