While Aston Villa secured an important win over Leicester City this past weekend, Unai Emery will be fully aware of our need to improve still.
Credit to the Foxes is due though, as they made it difficult for us with their defensive structure and set-up, packing the middle of the pitch to frustrate us as we looked for passing lanes through the lines to be effective.
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Instead, the focus became our wide players, and while Ross Barkley’s strike was a much-needed spark, it was Ian Maatsen’s impact off the bench and Leon Bailey’s winner that ultimately helped secure all three points.
It was a pivotal win as we started the year with a boost, and there were positives to take from the encounter as we enjoyed spells of dominance in dictating tempo and controlling the game with possession.
However, Leicester also had good periods in the game as they took advantage of our drop off in intensity and tempo to grow into it and pose a threat of their own.
To an extent, that’s natural over the course of 90 minutes, as Villa will not be entirely dominant for a whole game week in and week out, but what we must improve is being more clinical at both ends of the pitch.
Yet again, we failed to keep a clean sheet, as Leicester pounced on a poor Ollie Watkins pass and proceeded to break with speed before finding the back of the net just minutes after we had broken the deadlock.
Despite having a handful of Villa players in the box who outnumbered Leicester’s attacking players, we couldn’t deal with the situation, and it was another poor goal to concede as clean sheets continue to be elusive for us.
While we were able to overcome that particular issue as Bailey restored our advantage, Watkins was then guilty of missing a huge chance in the latter stages, while the likes of Bailey, Emiliano Buendia and others went close too as we failed to kill off the game and make it comfortable.
It didn’t matter on this occasion, but that has, and will, cost us, as we can ill-afford to be so wasteful against top-level teams in the Premier League.
With no Jhon Duran, Watkins will continue to lead the line for Villa, and we shouldn’t forget or play down all the important aspects of his game that make him a key cog in our side. It was his running into the channel that forced the corner in the lead up to our first goal, and his work ethic and movement is vital for us, even if he had little service on Saturday.
However, he’ll know better than anyone that he has to be more ruthless in front of goal, and hopefully he finds some goalscoring form sooner rather than later as it will certainly help us put together a good run.
Villa improved from a defensive perspective in our win this weekend, as Tyrone Mings returned to the starting line-up and partnered Ezri Konsa in the middle. Matty Cash and Lucas Digne played their part, as did Emiliano Martinez, but in a game where we struggled badly to find a breakthrough, we simply can’t throw away leads and concede sloppy goals as it just makes our lives increasingly harder.
This was at least a step in the right direction, but hopefully we’ll see more focus, less lapses and a ruthless sharpness return to our play both in attack and defence to fuel a big run.
