Influence of classy Villa ace integral to developing Emery’s style of play

One of the key influences in Aston Villa’s improvement under Unai Emery has been the impact made by Alex Moreno, who continues to go from strength to strength.

As per Sky Sports, Villa signed the Spaniard from Real Betis in a deal worth £13.3m in January, with the 29-year-old becoming Emery’s first signing at the club and looking like a superb piece of business just months later.

READ MORE: Decisive Villa ace continues to thrive under Emery in major transformation

While the left-back role didn’t appear to be a glaring issue that needed to be a priority as such given Lucas Digne’s presence in the squad, it was clearly an area Emery wanted to address quickly to bring in a player who suited his ideas and style of play better.

Naturally, Moreno needed time to adapt and adjust to the Premier League, but as the weeks have gone on and as he’s established himself as first-choice in that position, we’re seeing his quality come though and have a major influence on the way in which we play.

Moreno improvement defensively, attacking influence

First and foremost, the Spanish left-back deserves credit for the improvements he’s made defensively, as that was an aspect of his game that perhaps had question marks around it still.

While he can still get better in that phase of the game, he looks more assured and competitive in duels in his own half now and that’s important as we continue to look solid defensively with four consecutive home clean sheets, and six in our last eight league outings.

Emery is evidently pleased with what he’s seen from his January recruit, praising his adaptation and how he’s now ‘at the same level’ as Digne.

“Alex Moreno is improving and adapting very well,” he told the media, as per BirminghamLive. “He was struggling to begin with because the adaptation is hard. I remember his first match against Leeds when Digne was injured after 10 minutes. Moreno struggled a little bit but progressively his adaptation has been very quick. His performances are at the same level as Digne’s now.

“His best quality is his speed. In the attacking third, he’s getting there in the box and finding not only crosses but passes as well. It’s very good. I knew his qualities before in Spain. Now with Lucas Digne, both are trying to play with the idea we are creating. I like sometimes that one side we use more, like the left-back, pushing higher more than the right-back.”

With 71 touches in Saturday’s win over Newcastle, Moreno had more than any other player. He had five crosses, five touches in the opposition box, won back possession five times, played four passes into the final third, created three chances, won three duels, completed two take-ons and while playing a key role in keeping a clean sheet, he also registered an assist.

Newcastle had very little joy down his left flank in an attacking sense, and we saw Moreno consistently push forward and get into threatening areas to add an important dynamic to our attacking play.

Whether it’s simply providing width and stretching the pitch to give his teammates playing more centrally time and space to exploit or providing an attacking outlet himself with his overlapping runs and ability to break forward into the box, he makes us a more dynamic attacking outfit that can hurt teams in different ways.

Particularly against sides who are happy to sit back and force us to break them down, he becomes integral to find a way through when the middle of the pitch becomes crowded.

However, with his speed, intent, technical quality and hopefully an ever-improving final ball, he can find ways through all defences, while his connection with Ollie Watkins continues to become more effective with early balls played in behind defences for the Villa striker to feed off.

As seen in the statistic below, Moreno is creating a lot of chances for us and it’s an important aspect of how Emery wants his side to play as we’ve seen it before at Villarreal.

With Matty Cash or Ashley Young tucking in on the opposite side and creating defensive solidity at the back while we’re in possession, it gives Moreno the freedom to make those marauding runs forward and provide a real threat in the opposition half.

Emery deserves so much credit for getting his first major signing so right, but Moreno’s ability to adapt to become such an integral figure in the side so quickly has been hugely impressive. If this is a sign of what trusting Emery in the transfer market delivers, Villa will be more than comfortable in trusting his judgement in a big summer transfer window ahead.

Pervis Estupiñán (20) the only full back with more chances created from open play than Álex Moreno (19) since his PL debut.

And Moreno doing so in the same role that Estupiñán was superb in for Emery's Villarreal. Such an important signing to get the Villa version running. pic.twitter.com/Cv06iKnS0B

— Jamie Kemp (@jamiemkemp) April 15, 2023