Aston Villa Women: Carla Ward should stick with pressing game despite growing pains
As Aston Villa and Carla Ward take stock during the mid-season break, they will question how they can bridge the gap to the top-four sides in the WSL.
Throughout the first half of the 2022/23 season, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, and Manchester City have looked a class apart and stretched a four-point gap to West Ham in fifth.
Now there is an argument to say their profound success directly correlates with the amount of money spent in the last few transfer windows, but all four sides also execute a high, relentless, and aggressive pressing game.
Since she arrived in the west midlands in 2021, Ward has tried to implement an exciting brand of football, which includes pressing opposition defences aggressively from the off-set. And after signing Rachel Daly – the leader of her press – and Kirsty Hanson in the summer, her team’s attempts to harry opposition defences were evident to fans in the first match of the season against Manchester City.
Setting up in a 4-3-3 formation, Ward gave Daly the licence to urge her teammates forward and get stuck into their top-four opponents. After wasting countless opportunities when winning the ball back in the final third in the early stages, Villa took the lead following a perfectly executed press.
With City attempting to play out from the back, Villa’s forward three, but more importantly, their midfield three stepped onto their opponents and tightened the space.
Alisha Lehmann and Laura Blindkilde Brown stepped onto the centre-back pairing – forcing the ball wide – before Daly dispossessed Laia Aleixandri as City tried to make their escape down the right flank. After City’s defence was caught napping, Lehmann took the subsequent opportunity and found the back of the net.
According to Wyscout data, Daly recovered the ball on five occasions in City’s half and made a further three interceptions, while Hanson successfully recovered the ball four times and made three interceptions.
Now the issue with this style of pressing is that it is high-risk, high-reward in nature.
In the 4-3 win over Manchester City, the team executed Ward’s gameplan to perfection, and, as a result, their efforts bore fruits, as they walked away with a famous three points.
In recent weeks, the press has proven Villa’s own downfall as they fell to a 5-0 defeat to Manchester United and a 4-1 loss to Arsenal in consecutive weeks before the mid-season break.
A system such as Ward’s means that if one player doesn’t pull their weight or a certain individual doesn’t know their role in the press, the whole game plan collapses.
And during these two losses, the lack of certainty was evident. Manchester United, in particular, played through Villa’s press with a precision few doctors could match and carved open numerous opportunities as Ward’s side overcommitted and left themselves exposed at the back.
Although losses such as these are a bitter pill to swallow, they are all part of the growing process.
Adapting entirely to a press takes years of practice, and this phase is when some lesser managers lose faith in the process. Ward needs to take these bumps in the road in her stride and trust her team is on the right track.
In other Aston Villa news, The day Villa went berserk at the Bridge: Eight goals, two penalties, and three sent off in 2007 Boxing Day bonanza