View: Aston Villa need to repeat tactical genius to do double over Crystal Palace
Crystal Palace will be the visitors to Villa Park on Sunday (15 May) in something of a dead rubber game for Steven Gerrard’s Aston Villa.
The Villans have no relegation worries nor a chance at sneaking into the European places with just two games left to play and it’s the same scenario for the Eagles too.
That could make Sunday’s clash a very exciting and free-flowing affair with neither side needing to be concerned about conceding too much.
It was the Villa who came out on top in the previous encounter between the two sides this season with goals from Matt Targett and John McGinn enough to secure all three points at Selhurst Park.
Plenty has changed since then but there are things that Gerrard can carry over to Sunday’s game and see similar successes again.
One thing we were able to penetrate time and time again in the capital in the previous visit was small spaces in between the midfield and defence.
Here, Emiliano Buendia was the player who ghosted into an open area of green grass and when the ball came to his feet, he had enough time to turn and find a pass before the defenders could get anywhere near him.
It is something that we can exploit again with Patrick Vieira’s expansive attacking brand of football leaving gaps at the other end of the pitch.
The Eagles will still pose a threat to our own defence though as they tormented Watford in their last game with very clever and subtle fluency of positions.
To begin with, in this example, Wilfried Zaha is in the wide areas while Eberechi Eze tries to find space inside of the Ivorian as he cuts in on his right foot.
Moments later though, Eze is suddenly on the wing as Zaha performs a cute turn to wrong-foot his opposite number.
Most notably, no defenders has been able to follow Eze into the flank so the Englishman has enough time and space to get a decent cross into the area, which they eventually win a penalty from.
Villa need to be very wary of this with a similar fluency on the right-hand side as well but everything looks set for a very entertaining game of football.
In other Aston Villa news, we’ve been fleeced by Barcelona in the Philippe Coutinho deal with a startling release clause revealed.