In recent weeks it has become apparent that since Paul Lambert’s much documented visit to Germany to watch Bayern Munich train, Aston Villa’s style of play has changed drastically. Up until the last few games, it would be customary when watching Villa to expect possession stats of around 30% and the threat of goal to come from the counter attack. Since the Swansea game in particular however, it is clear that Lambert has tried to implement a more possession based style of football upon the team, with one example of this being Villa having more of the ball at the Liberty Stadium than Swansea…how many teams can say that? It has in the last few games become particularly apparent that this passing football has not improved our goal threat and arguably has perhaps even decreased it. I believe that there are certain aspects about the way in which Villa go about playing that need to change in order for this system for work:
1) Movement off the ball – one of the most crucial parts of a ‘pass and move’ style of play is as well as the passing (yes you guessed it) there must be movement. This is something that has been severely lacking in the past few games, without intelligent movement off the ball it just results in, as we saw vs Blackpool…lateral passing…and lots of it. This movement off the ball leads me onto my next point: Players knowing their own strengths and weaknesses in this style of play.
2) It is clear to see in my eyes that players such as Andi Weimann and Gabriel Agbonlahor don’t have the technical ability to play a possession based style of football. I mean this in the sense of, them not being the type of player who is going to be able to drop deep, get the ball and create something by threading a neat through ball into someone. They and Paul Lambert both need to realise this and be more intelligent with their movement, Gabby especially can cause huge problems for opposition defences by running in behind more often. As Rio Ferdinand once said “the one thing you can’t defend against is pace” and that is Gabby’s main asset, currently it’s not being utilised properly; both of these players mentioned seemed to have it ingrained in their heads that they have to be one of the players in the team to create something through neat passing, when in my eyes they are simply not capable of doing this. Again vs Blackpool, I counted one ball which went over the top in a whole 90 minutes of football and it resulted in one of our best chances of the game through Benteke.
3) My third point is related to the first two, our best player when on form is Christian Benteke, who in my opinion has the ability to play for a top-4 side (shh – Spurs might claim they’ve agreed a deal with him again). The biggest asset in our team isn’t being used in the best possible way currently; just because we want to play a passing style of football doesn’t mean we can’t cross the ball or occasionally go direct. If we don’t cross the ball we remove one of the main attacking weapons from our game, our crossing recently has been on the whole very poor and the overlapping in the team needs improving, but that’s another story. We also shouldn’t be afraid of going direct once in a while, it’s fine that we have a largely possession based style of football but occasionally if the opposition are expecting passing it would be worth going direct to Benteke and playing off him, as his hold up play is superb.
4) Finally to successfully implement this style of play, I do believe that you need that player in your side who can just create something that perhaps other players can’t do. At the moment Lambert seems to be keen on playing Cleverley, Westwood and Sanchez together in the same team. For me Cleverley and Westwood are too similar a player to have both of them playing at the same time. If you then take out one of Westwood/Cleverley you free up an extra attacking spot; I would like to see us sign someone who can play the much talked about no.10 role (*cough* Kiyotake *cough*). There is apparent interest in Carles Gil the Valencia attacking midfielder and he is very much the type of player we should be looking to purchase. In the meantime I would like to see one of Joe Cole or Jack Grealish given a start in most games as they’re one of the few players that we possess currently who have that bit of attacking flair and unpredictability.
I definitely think that we have the players to be able to play this style of football. Steve McLaren and Eddie Howe are just two examples of coaches who have successfully been able to implement this style of play on their teams with much less able players than what Mr Lambert has at his disposal currently. I just think certain adjustments need to be made if it’s going to work properly as I have suggested above.
