Aston Villa's recent win over Tottenham has moved them up the Premier League table, and put the Champions League firmly in their sights. It's a position that Unai Emery's side more than merit and, thanks to their manager's ingenious attacking system, one they've got every chance of holding onto.
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00:00 (electronic music)
00:02 - Hello everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here,
00:07 metaphysically returning from the feast of football
00:11 we've all enjoyed this weekend
00:12 to talk to you about Aston Villa,
00:15 one of the most interesting and exciting teams in England,
00:19 maybe about to be one of the most interesting
00:22 and exciting teams in the Champions League.
00:26 Deadly serious.
00:27 (bell dings)
00:30 Well, straight off the bat, are Aston Villa a top four team?
00:33 Well, they just went and beat a team
00:34 who are already in the top four
00:36 to put themselves in the top four,
00:37 so yes, currently they are a top four team.
00:40 And they're there completely on merit,
00:42 like for total number of goals scored, they're a top four team
00:45 for total number of shots, they're a top four team
00:47 for total shots on target, they're a top four team.
00:50 Hey, maybe you're one of those people who really likes XG,
00:53 well, they're a top four team for that.
00:54 Maybe you love non-penalty XG,
00:57 which is their XG minus all the penalties,
00:59 'cause obviously penalties grossly inflate you,
01:01 actually, they're a top four team for that.
01:03 Now, admittedly, when you flip those stats around,
01:05 it becomes less good, like goals conceded, shots on target
01:08 against total XG, against all of that stuff.
01:11 They're not a top four team, they're like right smack bang
01:14 in the middle of a table, but crucially,
01:16 they're all defensive stats, aren't they?
01:18 And as you know, defending is for nerds.
01:21 But let's just be real here, right?
01:23 If you're in the top four of the Premier League
01:24 for creating chances and scoring goals,
01:27 you're just really good.
01:29 Like that just doesn't happen by accident.
01:30 And how's he done it?
01:31 How's genius, big brain, tricksy continental manager,
01:35 Unai Emery, what system has he devised
01:39 that has flummoxed English football?
01:41 It's a 4-4-2!
01:43 He's actually using a 4-4-2,
01:47 and nobody knows how to play against it.
01:49 That's just, that's really funny.
01:52 And I mean, of course, if nothing else,
01:53 it's simply very cool of him to devise
01:55 his entire footballing philosophy
01:57 around both his favorite magazine and YouTube channel.
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02:02 All right, so all joking aside,
02:03 even though obviously I wasn't joking,
02:04 it's not, it is a 4-4-2 in principle,
02:06 but the way he executes it is just not a 4-4-2 at all,
02:09 because this, this is the end result
02:12 they are trying to end up in, in the final third.
02:15 They want a line of five players
02:18 stretching the width of the pitch,
02:19 all able to either push forward or drop back
02:21 and get between the lines.
02:23 That's what they're trying to achieve,
02:25 but they do that from this.
02:28 They start with a really basic 4-4-2.
02:31 And how Aston Villa get from this to this
02:34 is all to do with these two wide players here.
02:38 Because you think of 4-4-2, you think of wingers,
02:40 don't you?
02:41 You think of classic, get to the byline,
02:43 get your cross in, that kind of player.
02:45 They couldn't be more different.
02:46 It's effectively closer to like a box midfield,
02:48 because you have the two holding players,
02:50 they drop off and then these two come in
02:52 about as narrow as they're able to do.
02:55 And the reason for that is because of this back six here,
02:58 all playing the ball around in the buildup,
03:00 they are trying to get a pass
03:02 through the middle of the pitch
03:04 to allow one of these two players to receive it.
03:07 And the reason for that is really clever
03:08 because it's trying to do one thing.
03:10 And if you directly try and stop that one thing,
03:12 it enables you to do something else, which is really good.
03:14 But first and foremost, it's quite unlikely
03:17 that a fullback is going to want to track a wide player
03:20 into this space to stop them receiving a pass.
03:23 As far as the fullback's concerned,
03:24 that stops being their problem.
03:26 So with Aston Villa playing the ball around at the back,
03:28 just being very patient with it,
03:30 it'll even do that thing that Brighton will do,
03:32 where they'll just put their foot on the ball
03:34 and be like, "Well, I've got my foot on the ball.
03:37 Guess I'm not prepared to dribble around you
03:39 or pass it anywhere,
03:40 so you should come and try and win it back."
03:42 They try and bait the opposition forward in that way
03:45 to create space here.
03:46 One of the wide players will eventually come into the middle
03:49 and then they make the line-breaking pass,
03:52 which takes the entire opposition press out of the way,
03:55 either over the top or through the middle, into here.
03:58 And when one of the wide players receives the ball
04:00 in that central area, that is just the trigger
04:03 for the entire rest of the Aston Villa squad
04:05 to assemble their attacking shape.
04:07 I know it sounds like there's a little bit
04:10 of like Morphin' Time Power Rangers about it,
04:13 and there is.
04:14 That is exactly what it's like.
04:15 So if, for example, it is the left-hand wide player,
04:17 the first thing that has to happen
04:19 is that the fullback on that side has to get up
04:21 and provide the width over there.
04:23 The wide player on the other side,
04:24 they move out to the touchline
04:26 to help stretch the opposition.
04:27 The forward nearest to them,
04:29 they go into sort of an advanced eight position.
04:31 Always, if possible, Olly Watkins will stay in the middle.
04:34 And then they carry the ball into this area,
04:37 giving you that front five.
04:39 Behind them, the two defensive midfielders,
04:41 they will push up and the defenders swing around
04:44 into a nice back three with the opposite side fullback
04:47 tucking in because they're really happy to do that.
04:50 So that is how Villa go from a 4-4-2 in their own half
04:53 to a 3-2-5 all up in your chips.
04:56 But what's really impressive is not just that they do this,
04:59 it's how quickly they can do this,
05:01 how quickly they can get from back to front,
05:03 from system to system, from shape to shape.
05:05 Like technical term for you here,
05:06 this is sort of what's known as a direct attack,
05:09 which sounds obvious, like all attacks are direct,
05:11 but it's like a statistic thing,
05:13 which basically refers to any time you start
05:16 with the ball in your own half and you end up
05:18 with either a touch in the box or a shot,
05:20 so you basically create a chance out of it.
05:23 And I think it's 50% of all the passes have to be forward.
05:27 So you're looking to basically go from back to front
05:29 as quickly as you can.
05:30 It's a direct attack.
05:32 Now, if you're sitting there thinking,
05:33 well, surely every team wants to do direct attacks.
05:35 Well, they do if they can, but you want to see
05:38 the current league table for just direct attacks.
05:41 The top Villa are literally top.
05:43 They are the best team in the Premier League right now
05:46 from starting with the ball at the back
05:48 and creating a chance out of it.
05:50 Like just to show you how much of a stylistic thing it is,
05:53 Man City, famed for knocking the ball around
05:55 all over the pitch, death by a thousand cuts.
05:57 They languish down in like 15th or something.
06:00 And Liverpool, obviously famed for how quickly
06:02 they attack you and go from end to end.
06:04 They're second.
06:05 Like Liverpool are the team you think of
06:07 when you think of direct attacks,
06:09 and Aston Villa currently are better at it than they are.
06:12 Now we could just go over the Tottenham goal again
06:14 and show you why having a front five like this
06:16 is so dangerous and how you've got players
06:19 who can drop off, you've got width,
06:20 you can cross, you can come inside.
06:21 It gives you so many options.
06:22 And obviously what you're trying to do,
06:25 like you do anywhere on the pitch,
06:26 is get a numerical advantage.
06:28 Like the whole thing about boxing in fields
06:30 is you get four players where the opposition have three.
06:32 So the whole point of having this attacking five
06:34 is you have five players, seen here,
06:37 where the opposition only has four players, seen here.
06:40 And ergo, it's impossible for everybody to be marked.
06:42 You're always gonna have a spare man.
06:43 And in this case, that was Tielemans.
06:45 He was able to play Watkins in
06:46 and he scored a really, really good goal.
06:48 So you can see why they wanna do that.
06:51 But what's even cleverer-er-er-er about this system
06:55 is the way I have just shown you they make it,
06:58 with Dinhia on this side and then coming in doing that,
07:01 that's not what they do all the time.
07:04 They do this in another way.
07:06 So let's just have a gentle reset here.
07:08 Matty Cachie goes back out to right back,
07:10 Lecent, the back, there you go there.
07:11 Dinhia comes all the way back.
07:13 And I think it was, I think I had McGinn here,
07:15 he received the ball.
07:15 So he goes back out there, D'Arby and Watkins.
07:18 And we're back in our 4-4-2.
07:21 So what happens if in that line breaking pass,
07:23 it actually goes to this guy?
07:25 Well, they just do the exact same thing again
07:27 from the other side.
07:28 The width, that comes from the right back.
07:31 He gets up there, the two forwards.
07:33 They'll usually try and keep Watkins in the center,
07:35 but he can drift out ever so slightly.
07:36 There he's flanked by the two eights.
07:38 And the other wide attacker, they come into that side.
07:41 The defense shuffles over.
07:43 Now, Dinhia, who's just as comfortable
07:45 being at left center back.
07:46 He comes across there as well.
07:47 They push the whole midfielders up and voila!
07:50 It's the same five from the other side.
07:54 And do you know how hard that is?
07:55 To put like, Emery's been in this job just over a year
08:00 and he's managed to get a team together
08:02 with just two transfer windows.
08:03 They haven't spent an insane amount of money.
08:05 The majority of what he's done here is in coaching.
08:09 But do you want to know my other favorite thing
08:10 about Aston Villa?
08:11 Like, they are so aggressive and so front foot.
08:14 And when they get you in this system,
08:15 they squeeze you as high as they possibly can.
08:18 They push that line right the way up
08:21 and it's where they concede most of their goals from
08:23 because they leave all the space behind.
08:24 It's the risk reward that they're really happy with.
08:26 They play on the front foot like this
08:29 and they're not even a high pressing team.
08:32 They don't try and win the ball back here
08:35 like you'd expect them to.
08:36 Like, here's a mind bending statistic for you.
08:38 Like, I compared them to Liverpool before
08:40 because they kind of set the bar for direct attacks
08:43 in the Premier League
08:43 and now Villa are even better at it than they are.
08:46 So you'd assume that other side of Liverpool's game,
08:49 which is when you've pushed everybody up,
08:50 you try and win it back really quickly.
08:52 You're good at high turnovers,
08:53 winning the ball back in the opposition's third.
08:55 Villa, by extension, must now be really good at that, right?
09:00 Nah, wrong.
09:01 The third bottom in the league
09:03 for the number of high turnovers.
09:05 They're not interested in trying to win the ball back here.
09:08 They want to do their play and if it doesn't work,
09:11 they will reset back into their 4-4-2
09:14 and wait until they get the ball back.
09:15 Like this breaks down or they lose the ball
09:17 or they miss the shot or whatever,
09:18 they get back into their 4-4-2.
09:20 We'll just do the old magic wand here.
09:22 And they don't sit deep and they don't sit compact
09:24 and they're not overly defensive.
09:25 They still try and keep the line
09:27 as high as they possibly can.
09:28 But what they do is they take the 4-4-2
09:31 and they're making a diamond 4-4-2.
09:32 One of the holding midfielders
09:34 charge into sort of this number 10 position
09:36 and they'll cover across there
09:37 and they'll try and stop teams playing through the middle
09:39 from doing the kind of buildup
09:41 that they themselves would do.
09:43 They want to stop that pass through the center.
09:45 So instead, they normally quite happily
09:46 allow the ball to go out to the fullbacks.
09:48 And then that triggers the two wide players
09:51 to press directly in a straight line
09:53 to stop any pass going forward.
09:56 What they're trying to force the opposition to do
09:58 is to kind of run out of ideas,
10:00 hit the ball long
10:01 and because they've got big strapping center backs,
10:03 that's why they bought Pau Torres,
10:05 they just clean it up.
10:06 They will squeeze and squeeze and push up and push up
10:09 and leave all this space in behind
10:10 because they're trying to bait the opposition
10:12 into hitting it long,
10:13 either so they'll win the aerial challenge
10:15 or it'll go in behind
10:17 and Martinez can come and sweep it up.
10:19 And then once they've got the ball back,
10:21 they just reset into their 4-4-2
10:23 and they start the whole thing again.
10:25 It's just so good.
10:26 My favorite thing about this though
10:28 is that their next most common route to goal,
10:30 their plan B,
10:32 is something that literally can only happen
10:33 because of the most common solution
10:36 to plan A.
10:37 I'd say you go and squeeze them right the way up
10:40 and you tell your full back,
10:41 listen here Sonny,
10:42 if you see that wide midfielder
10:44 moving into the middle to receive that ball,
10:46 you go with him.
10:47 You make sure he's not free to receive that pass.
10:50 And okay, you say,
10:51 so off your trot over there to make sure that happens
10:54 and then one of those forwards
10:56 just spins into the space that you have left.
10:59 And then if it's Ollie Watkins,
11:00 the defender or Martinez,
11:01 they're perfectly happy lumping a ball into your feet
11:03 that you can hold up
11:04 and then bring everybody else into play with.
11:06 Or if you're De'arby,
11:07 they're quite happy lumping it in behind
11:09 for you to go and chase
11:10 because that's why they've got De'arby
11:12 as one of the center forwards
11:13 because he offers another sort of approach to Watkins.
11:16 They've got so many ways they could hurt you.
11:20 It's so, so fun to watch.
11:22 And to quote cultural icon, Brian Butterfield,
11:24 that's still not all.
11:26 Now, one of the advantages
11:27 of having the kinds of center backs
11:28 who are there to deal with the aerial threat,
11:30 the long ball threat
11:31 that you are forcing the opposition to have
11:33 is that you're far more dangerous from set pieces.
11:35 And just to compare Villa
11:36 to the teams they are competing
11:38 for Champions League places for at set pieces,
11:41 they are joint top.
11:43 They've got four goals,
11:44 the exact same amount as set piece specialists,
11:47 Newcastle United.
11:48 And I appreciate when you look at the actual numbers,
11:50 it's not like loads more,
11:51 it's just the odd goal here and there,
11:52 but extrapolate that out across the course of a season
11:56 and Villa end up with like what,
11:58 eight, nine, 10, 12 goals from set pieces
12:01 and everybody else ends up with four, five or six.
12:04 And there's such small margins
12:06 trying to qualify for the Champions League,
12:08 those goals could make all the difference.
12:10 Like they're certainly worth having.
12:12 The really mad thing about all of this is though,
12:14 Emery's been doing it for like a year
12:16 and I think it still catches some people out.
12:17 Some people are still surprised
12:19 to see how good Villa are
12:21 because of this perception of him
12:23 as having been a flop or a failure while he was at Arsenal.
12:26 And I mean, it wasn't good.
12:27 Like I understand why there's a section
12:29 of the Arsenal fan base
12:30 that just have no love for him whatsoever,
12:32 but it's very different
12:33 because he has something of Villa
12:34 that he never had at Arsenal.
12:36 Like he had better or just more high reputation players,
12:39 he had more money, bigger infrastructure,
12:41 he had all that, but he doesn't have buy-in.
12:45 And you gotta have that.
12:46 Like if you wanna have these like lofty ideas
12:47 and complex systems
12:48 and all these different sort of approaches
12:50 you wanna have in game,
12:51 you've got to have the players on side.
12:54 You've got to have not just an 11,
12:55 but a squad who all buy into what you're trying to do,
12:58 who all sit there and listen,
13:00 and they'll pay attention,
13:00 and they'll work, and they'll run,
13:02 and they'll do all the stuff
13:03 you're trying to tell them to do.
13:05 And he's got that here.
13:07 That's why it works.
13:08 Now don't get me wrong, by the way,
13:09 it's not me saying like,
13:10 "Oh, it was all the players fault at Arsenal."
13:12 If they'd just listened to him,
13:13 they would have won the flipping lot.
13:15 Like it is a manager's job to get the players on side.
13:18 So that was clearly part of that job he failed at.
13:21 But looking at what he's doing at Villa now,
13:23 it's also something that he clearly learned from as well.
13:26 And yes, it is still early days,
13:27 there's a long way to go.
13:28 It's really hard to qualify for the Champions League,
13:32 but you look at this Villa side,
13:34 and you see what they're doing on the ball,
13:35 what they're doing off the ball,
13:36 how much everybody buys in,
13:38 how they don't feel like they're one or two injuries
13:40 from being in the midst of a disaster
13:43 or forgetting what it is they're trying to do.
13:45 And they really, really could do it this year.
13:49 They really could do it.
13:50 So yes, that is Aston Villa,
13:52 and I absolutely love Aston Villa this year.
13:54 So next time you're on television,
13:56 you should watch them and just look for all of this,
13:59 and you will love Aston Villa as well.
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14:45 Mondays, eh?