Ashley Young lets Aston Villa down as he’s spotted ignoring Leander Dendoncker in footage v Brentford
Aston Villa saw their winning run come to an end at the hands of Brentford on Saturday as they drew 1-1 away at the Gtech Community Stadium in West London.
However, Ivan Toney’s 65th-minute goal was completely avoidable and Unai Emery will no doubt be fuming with a couple of players for failing to stop it.
Robin Olsen hadn’t been on the pitch for 20 minutes after replacing the injured Emiliano Martinez and while the Swede can be blamed for Toney’s goal, he shouldn’t have even had a save to make.
That’s because Ashley Young’s poor marking and failure to do what Leander Dendoncker told him to allowed Toney the time and space to nip in at the back post and score.
In the image below, you can see Dendoncker dropping into the Villa defensive line to provide extra cover from a potentially dangerous Brentford attack.
Dendoncker then quickly spots Toney, who’s not in shot as it stands. The Belgian clearly looks at Young, shouts to him about the possible danger and even points at the Brentford goal machine.
As Toney arrives in shot, Young hasn’t adjusted his positioning to better cover the threat Toney poses.
In fact, the Villa right-back didn’t even look at the Bees’ striker.
And by the time the ball comes in, Young is having to scurry across to get tight to Toney to stop him from having a challenge-free shot at goal.
Young, for whatever reason, seemed to ignore the very clear communication from Dendoncker.
Dendoncker doesn’t have as much experience as Young but the former Wolves midfielder spotted the threat and did what he could to prevent Brentford from having such an easy chance at goal.
Even without Dendoncker’s communication, Young should really have been tighter to Toney and more aware of the striker’s position.
It was a poor display by the former Manchester United and Watford star anyway.
Stats by WhoScored show that Young only completed 77 per cent of his passes, which was the second-worst of all the Villa outfielders who started at Brentford.
He also didn’t complete any dribbles, didn’t complete any tackles, didn’t complete any interceptions and was also booked for the only foul he conceded in the whole game.
Young’s done well for Villa lately but it’s fair to say that his performance at Brentford was a disappointment.
In other Aston Villa news, Christian Purslow is keeping his promise to the squad after a player arrived at Bodymoor Heath ahead of a potential transfer.