View: Passing stat shows Aston Villa must keep Jacob Ramsey in more advanced position
It will come as no surprise to see Jacob Ramsey once again thriving in an Aston Villa shirt, with the 21-year-old proving to be one of the shining lights in the 2022/23 season.
Ramsey, like most of the team, struggled during Steven Gerrard’s rein. However, he has already shown a new lease of life under Unai Emery, having scored once and registered two assists in the Spaniard’s three games in charge.
There’s a chance that a fresh face in the dugout has simply rejuvenated Ramsey, however, Emery has deployed the midfielder in a slightly more advanced role compared to his predecessor and it’s looking like an inspired decision from the new boss.
His heatmaps below (Emery’s first two Premier League games in charge) demonstrate the high and wide average position the 21-year-old took up. He was seemingly given more licence to make things happen and it paid off for Villa.
The images below are Ramsey’s heatmaps from Villa’s defeats to Fulham and Chelsea (Gerrard’s final two games) and there’s a slight difference in the area of the field he operated in. He was often dropping deeper and looking to stay right on the touchline.
Ramsey failed to register a goal or an assist in both fixtures. There’s the argument to suggest that Emery’s appointment may have just given him the confidence to be more of an attacking threat, however, there’s also a strong case for the Spaniard giving the 21-year-old more freedom to make things happen.
One specific area of Ramsey’s game which is particularly impressive is his eagerness to play forward and do so with quality. As per Wyscout, only two players in the Premier League have a higher accuracy rate when passing to the final third compared to Ramsey’s 90 per cent. The only criticism of Ramsey is that he hasn’t done it enough, with only 3.54 per 90 minutes.
To put this into some context, Kyle Walker leads the way with 15 in each match. Ramsey is clearly lacking behind in terms of the number of forward passes he is playing. In the Premier League win over Manchester United he managed four, however, he still needs to up the creativity levels which he offers Aston Villa.
Potentially utilising him in a more advanced position is the way forward for Emery to increase the number of chances he has to make things happen in an attacking sense. His playmaking ability is also demonstrated with Ramsey managing an 83 per cent success rate when it comes to forward passing.
Furthermore, he manages 0.5 key passes per 90 minutes which has seen the midfielder register two assists under Emery so far. The match against Brighton was a little bit of an anomaly, with the Villans battling their way to a hard-earned three points, however, against United, it was clear the 51-year-old was looking to get Ramsey on the ball as much as possible.
He has averaged 20 passes received each match this season, however, against the Red Devils he received the ball 30 times. The two examples below from the United clash show Ramsey picking up the ball in pockets of space in between the midfield and defence.
On both occasions, he displays his ability to turn and drive forward with the ball before playing a pass into the final third. It’s certainly early days for Villa under Emery, but allowing the midfielder more licence to go forward and pick up dangerous pockets of space could see the chances begin to flow.
We all know the technical ability he possesses and he’s shown he has the quality to find a defensive splitting pass, it’s now about getting the 21-year-old in positions where he can create and hurt the opposition on a more regular occurrence.
In other Aston Villa news, Unai Emery will be rubbing his hands together as Jorge Mendes pushes Joao Felix to move to Aston Villa.