Aston Villa secured a stunning 6-1 win over Brighton on Saturday, with Unai Emery’s tactical set-up and strategy setting the path for our victory.
A response was expected after disappointment in midweek in the Carabao Cup, and we certainly got one as there was a high level of intensity, urgency and quality about our play this weekend, that resulted in a significant jump in our performance.
READ MORE: Villa player ratings vs Brighton: Watkins sensational in superb win
However, particularly against Roberto De Zerbi’s side, that is only half of the battle. It was fundamental that we got our tactical approach and set-up spot on too to outwit the Italian tactician, who has rightly received plaudits for his work with the Seagulls since he arrived.
Speaking to TNT Sports before the game, Villa captain John McGinn revealed that Emery got his squad in for an 8:40am team meeting on Saturday to go through additional preparation, such is his dedication and commitment to identifying the finer details on how we can best our opponents.
Time and time again, Villa went more direct, bypassing specific duels and putting the likes of McGinn and Moussa Diaby in dangerous pockets of space to pick holes in the Brighton backline, as opposed to our usual way of building out slowly from the back and having to work the length of the pitch.
We saw it for the first goal with McGinn setting Matty Cash through down the right side as he exploited Kaoru Mitoma lack of tracking back with Pervis Estupinan further up, and he subsequently played the ball across for Ollie Watkins to tap home.
For the second, our higher press and pressure forced an error in midfield, and quick, direct play from Diaby and Watkins resulted in us doubling our lead. That theme continued throughout the encounter, with Watkins himself noting in his post-match interview that the plan was to “get in their faces” and then “on the transition we killed them”, as per VillaTV.
It’s something that West Ham Utd did effectively against Brighton too, and given his love for video analysis, there is no doubt that Emery would have identified that and outlined that strategy to his players prior to kick-off.
“Yes [our plan was to go more direct], but our game plan was to try to avoid the duels,” he told the media, as per BirminghamLive. “Try to avoid their defence against us finding the players. We can fight against them man to man, and when they did that we tried to avoid the first build-up, playing with the players who are close to the goalkeeper.
“We did fantastic with Watkins fighting with the defence, Moussa Diaby and John McGinn. When we needed to play to keep the ball and build more, we did it as well.
“We needed different tactical work, a different game plan and we showed it.”
As seen in the graphic below, it even started with Emiliano Martinez’s distribution. We’ve become accustomed to seeing Villa play patient, measured football out from defence, but in an effort to bypass some of those duels that Emery was speaking about, there was a concerted effort to be more direct and really hurt Brighton with quick transitions.
McGinn did brilliantly with his passes in the lead up to several goals, while the movement and quick, snappy vertical passing from the likes Douglas Luiz and Diaby was crucial too as we attacked swiftly and often.
That was coupled with an excellent defensive effort. Villa were more aggressive as we pressed Brighton and forced them to go through the middle out of defence with our shape, and we didn’t allow them time on the ball to find their rhythm and play around us. That forced them into traps where we won possession back through the likes of Luiz and Boubacar Kamara, and so it was a superb collective effort to come out on top.
Again, that starts with the tactical game-plan from Emery before the game to put his players in a position to go out and dominate, and so the Spaniard and his coaching staff deserve plenty of credit for the structure, idea of playing and system that we implemented and showed this weekend.
