Aston Villa face an uphill task at Olympiacos next week, but fundamental to our chances will be the availability of three key players for Unai Emery.
Villa suffered a 4-2 defeat at home in the first leg of our Europa Conference League semi-final tie on Thursday night, and although we’re certainly capable of turning it around still, we’ve given ourselves a difficult task to make it a reality.
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The buzzword since Emery arrived has been control. The Villa boss has preached about how important it is and how pivotal it will be to our progress and development into a side capable of competing at the top level.
Unfortunately, we showed little of it in the first leg and so instead of control, chaos and a back-and-forth encounter ensued, with Olympiacos scoring four goals and taking the all-important advantage home with them ahead of our next meeting.
“We are frustrated and disappointed, we didn’t play well,” Emery told the media after the defeat.. “We didn’t have control of the game, we were playing so fast. In a lot of moments we needed to stop them and get in the box with more passes.”
Villa captain John McGinn added in his post-match interview with VillaTV: “Not the game we wanted. We obviously wanted a lot more control.”
Control. It’s a key Emery principle that has underpinned much of our success and progress since his appointment. He’s developed an identity and style of play that allows us to compete with top opposition while also managing a gruelling 50+ games campaign.
When Villa are rushed, stretched and not able to dictate tempo and possession, it has led to difficulties this season. We’ve shown plenty of resilience to deal with that and pick up positive results even when not at our best, but our most memorable performances this season have come when we’ve got that right.
Credit must also go to Olympiacos too. Their energy, pressing and organisation made it difficult for us, not only in terms of pressuring our defensive line into mistakes, but also cutting off passing lines into midfield and not allowing Douglas Luiz and John McGinn to be more influential.
While Brighton will be our priority in the coming days, it’s clear that we need to adapt and impose ourselves better in the second leg, and the return of three fundamental players will be critical for us.
Emiliano Martinez, Pau Torres and Youri Tielemans were all missing this week, to add to the already lengthy absentee list, and we undoubtedly missed their presence in the side.
Those three are integral to how Emery wants us to play in terms of control, composure, patience and technical ability to play through the lines, beat the opposition’s press and dictate tempo and possession, and so it’s hoped that they’re all able to make the second leg.
Torres will surely be a certainty to start having sat out to rest on Thursday, while it’s hoped that both Martinez and Tielemans can return from injury in time to be restored to the Villa XI.
It will take a significant effort to make next Thursday’s second leg a memorable occasion, and while we must of course give it everything in terms of energy and heart, Emery and the Villa players will kick themselves if they don’t exercise that element of control that has made us such a formidable side and an enjoyable watch all season.
