Aston Villa were able to see off West Ham in our third round FA Cup tie on Friday night, but it was far from a vintage performance.
An early goal from Lucas Paqueta gave the visitors the lead on a bitterly cold night at Villa Park, and it wasn’t until the second half that Unai Emery and the players began to step up and show an ability to get into the game.
READ MORE: Villa player ratings vs West Ham: Decisive trio help secure comeback win
Amadou Onana and Morgan Rogers struck within the space of five minutes to turn the game around, and so Villa ultimately were able to secure safe passage into the next round and keep our hopes of silverware this season alive.
Focus will now switch to Everton in the Premier League next week, but on a memorable night for the club as we celebrated our 150th anniversary, the important thing was that we were able to get the win and advance.
Dreadful first half performance as Villa struggled
Particularly for those in attendance, the opening 45 minutes were a difficult watch. Villa lacked energy, intensity, urgency, creativity and any tempo to our play.
Credit to West Ham, as they were organised and disciplined to frustrate us as Graham Potter clearly came with an effective gameplan to shut us down, with the ball constantly finding it’s way back to Tyrone Mings, with Ian Maatsen his only out ball down the left, which never really went anywhere either.
However, Villa contributed to that with a lack of inventiveness and courage to try and break through West Ham’s shape and set-up, as everything we did was slow, predictable and in front of them, making it easier for them to stay organised and avoid deviating from their approach.
Conceding early first goal is a major issue
While Emery was pleased with the win, he did note in his post-match interviews that conceding goals is still a big problem and Villa are working on cutting those out.
Particularly when they come early in games, we struggle then against sides prepared to sit back in numbers, pack the middle of the pitch and wait to hit us on the counter attack.
When we score the first goal, it’s an entirely different story. The opposition is then forced to push forward and open up, and that’s when we can utilise our qualities in the final third to exploit space and hurt teams in transition. The point being, we have to stop conceding poor, early goals and giving ourselves a bigger mountain to climb.
Important switch to start the second half
It was clear that there was a shift in our approach as soon as the second half started. There was more zip to our passing, the tempo increased as we shifted it around quicker, forcing West Ham to chase and shuffle across the pitch, while importantly, players showed for the ball to provide support and there was movement and runs in behind to create a threat.
Further, Emery dropped Boubacar Kamara deeper as the right-sided centre-half when we had possession, which gave us more composure and time on the ball, and allowed Matty Cash to push forward and stretch the pitch.
Eventually we were able to up the tempo, build sustained pressure, and although there was obviously a huge slice of luck for our equaliser in the way the corner was awarded, we made the most of it from that point on and really took the game to West Ham to turn it around.
Goal encompassed all critical aspects we were missing
Our second goal looked relatively simple in a way, but it had critical aspects that we were missing through the first half and that made life much more difficult for us.
From Youri Tielemans picking the ball up in a deeper position and playing a key pass to open things up and bypass West Ham’s midfield, to Emiliano Buendia finding space between the lines to link our play together to add fluidity and speed to our attack and Ollie Watkins peeling off into the channel to stretch their defence and create space inside with Rogers making the supporting run and taking advantage of that space left vacated in the middle.
Those are the small, but fundamental, elements that we didn’t show enough of in the first half, and so it’s hopefully a lesson for us as we’ve seen many teams set up in this way against us now, and we have to be more savvy and creative to pick holes and open them up.
Emery makes crucial substitutions again
Although he was forced into the early Onana change due to Ross Barkley’s injury, Emery’s substitutions were decisive again in this game as Onana, Emiliano Buendia, Jacob Ramsey and Kosta Nedeljkovic were all vital in the latter stages.
Similarly to our win over Leicester City last weekend, those coming on injected energy and fresh impetus into our play, and helped us apply sustained pressure to start knocking on the door and asking questions of West Ham’s defence.
The timing was critical as well as the Villa boss made a triple change in the 72nd minute, and that shaped how the latter stage of the game went as we were able to secure the win and looked the stronger side in the second half to ultimately do enough and deserve the win.