View: Aston Villa could be content without the ball under Unai Emery
It’s hard to cast a well-thought-out judgement of how Aston Villa are going to set up under Unai Emery when the Premier League does return at the end of December.
The Spaniard has hit the ground running with two wins on the spin against Manchester United and Brighton to kick off his reign at Villa Park.
In both fixtures, it’s become abundantly clear Villa will be a tough nut to crack under the 51-year-old, whilst also being a threat on the counterattack. We’ve certainly seen this group of players show an improvement in fight and desire in recent weeks which was completely lost under Steven Gerrard.
Judging by Emery’s three fixtures, it’s clear he likes to operate with a variation of a 4-4-2 system and for his side to be completely content out of possession.
Villa have clearly been more threatening in possession with the likes of Jacob Ramsey and Leon Bailey thriving. However, there has been a clear difference in the amount of the ball the Villans have obtained compared to when Gerrard was in charge.
According to Wyscout, Villa have averaged 41 per cent of possession in Emery’s first three matches in charge. Under Gerrard in the first part of the 2022/23 season, the Villas averaged 49 per cent of possession. It’s also important to remember the Villans faced Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal in that period, where they didn’t have much of the ball.
It’s still early days for Emery and it’s a small sample size to use, but it would not be a surprise to see Villa become comfortable out of possession in the second half of the season.
Against the bigger sides, it could well be an excellent way of picking up results when their backs are against the wall. Time will tell, but this change in possession could be a key change we begin to see when the Premier League kicks back into full swing.
In other Aston Villa news, Bracey believes Robin Olsen hasn’t been good enough and the club needs a replacement back-up keeper.