Minority Report - Aston Villa

I did not witness the game at Brighton, but we certainly goy a chasing off Reading in the previous game until the sending off. As predicted, this is a tough league to play 4-4-2 in. In fact, it is tougher than expected because our opponents are often quick and they can catch us on the break with too many of our midfield committed too far forward. I did not expect Hecky to react today, I thought that it would be at Leeds. But he did!

We played 4-4-1-1 with Scowen behind Bradshaw and with Morsy next to Hourihane behind him. Hecky decided to continue with the workaholic Watkins, but because he played on the right of midfield, Kent had to switch sides to play on the left. Like Reading, Villa were quick throughout the team, but our shape meant that we were much more able to cope with them on the break, and half-time came we no alarms in the home defence. Sadly, there were few alarms at the Villa end too. Kent is no Hammill and he finds it hard to play in the same way. His game is pace on the outside of the full back, and if this results in a cross on the left foot, then the cross is going to be poor. One bright aspect of the team was the performance of Bradshaw, who I thought had his best game for the club. The ball up to him was of the 50:50 variety, but he fought for every one, and did all that could be expected in the circumstances.

I expected us to change at some point to 4-4-2 in order to try to win the game, but in the end the change was forced upon us because Villa scored, and there was no longer any point to the system with which we started. We might as well lose by 2 or 3 than lose by 1. And that is the way that it looked for a period as our passing and our legs started to fail us. I never give up hoping though, and we improved when Hammill replaced a tired Watkins and Kent reverted to the right side. It was a Hammill corner followed by a Kpekawa nod back over the flailing keeper that gave Winnall his chance from 6 yards, and he headed home an equaliser.

By the end, there were some very tired players in red. Hourihane seemed shattered from the off, but he is our talisman, and he must play when available. Morsy was dead by 60 minutes, but until then he had offered a defensive screen that had allowed Hourihane and Scowen to play further forward, but Watkins was largely ineffective, once again because he looked tired after the Brighton game. The insistence on playing 4-4-2 against very quick teams playing variants of 4-5-1 is wearing our midfield players down. Expect 4-5-1 again at Leeds on Saturday and hope for a breakaway winning goal from Armstrong late on.

 

I made the point in the Minority Report for the Reading game that although it is always 11 v 11 (bad example) and therefore there is never a numerical advantage in theory, these numerical advantages happen constantly throughout most games, for example, where briefly one player is out-numbered by two opponents because for some reason another player is not where he should be. Earlier in the season, our game planning limited Hourihane and Scowen in their support for the front two because we did not want our centre mid-field outnumbered should our opponents break quickly. I made reference to it in my Minority Reports for the Derby and QPR games without realising the reason. Since the Reading game, it is has become clear why they were being limited. It is hard for a two man central mid-field to deal with an opposition three, especially if they are quick. Not only is it hard, it is also very wearing because they need to get goal side of the ball before they can link up effectively with the two central defenders to form a effective unit that denies space to our opponents at the edge of our box. Yesterday, we looked tired. We looked like we had gone through some really hard games and had not had time to recover. Some posters have said that we passed poorly, and that is what it looked like. But a marked player must show for the ball by making a run in order to find space. The players ahead of the passers were not making those runs because of tiredness and the defenders were able to read the pass and intercept easily.

I felt that we looked like we needed an easier night and matching their system meant that the central mid-field players got that. Of course, it was harder for Bradshaw because his support was not close enough and the passes to his were either not accurate enough, or they were delivered from too far away, so he had a fight on his hands. But he held his own. Above all, what we must remember is that most teams in this division have spent more on their teams by a factor of 100, and one assumes that you get a better player if you spend more cash. We are trying to compensate for that by learning in the job, by our team spirit and by our unity. We got a point that we did not look like getting because we continued to believe and continued to fight. Hopefully that will carry us through, but we must guard against the players becoming over-tired. They will not be able to outwork their opponents every week. There is only so much water in the well, and there is only so much energy in even the fittest body.

I have seen it written on here that we only improved when we went to 4-4-2, and that is the system that we were using when we forced the corner that we subsequently scored from. However, I counted 3 easy Villa chances whilst we were creating just the one that we scored from. You really do have to look at more than the score-line in order to learn.

 

As you say, the game is about opinions.

 

Lies, damn lies and statistics.