How Unai Emery Made Aston Villa Champions League Contenders
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?