Aston Villa fell to a 1-0 defeat to Club Brugge in the Champions League on Wednesday as our poor form over the past fortnight continues.
Hans Vanaken’s second-half penalty was all that split the two sides, but it was another abject performance from Villa who have now lost three consecutive games across all competitions.
READ MORE: Unai Emery’s reaction to Villa’s loss at Club Brugge, Mings mistake
With a trip to Anfield to face Liverpool next up ahead of the international break, it remains to be seen if Unai Emery and the players can get back on track and rebuild some confidence before the squad splinters off for national team duty, but there are certainly some reasons for concern given our form in recent outings.
Villa lacking energy, intensity and aggression
While the disappointment over our results is one thing, perhaps the more concerning issue is the level of our performances as we’ve not been anywhere near our best over the past handful of games.
Villa have settled well into games and got a foothold in the early stages, but we’ve then clearly lacked energy, intensity and aggression both in and out of possession, and it’s allowing the opposition to have the ball and cause us problems in and around our box, while with a lack of movement and tempo on the ball, we’re becoming slow and predictable and failing to disrupt deep defensive shapes.
It’s clearly a big problem and a major factor as to why we’ve struggled, and given it almost looks as though we’re playing within ourselves at times to conserve energy, this approach isn’t what got us to this point, and so a return to our previous principles is necessary.
Duran substitution-Watkins partnership not working
Emery has been in a difficult situation over the past week as we’ve had to chase games and go looking for a way back, and that in turn has led to Jhon Duran being brought on in his usual super-sub role to try and find a breakthrough.
However, the Villa boss has tried to go with having both the Colombian international and Ollie Watkins up top together, and it hasn’t worked.
Aside from the fact that neither Villa striker has really threatened when on the pitch together, we lose our balance and ability to dictate play deeper on the pitch with two up front, and so we tend to struggle to create much. In turn, it’s something that either needs to be worked on or scrapped as we haven’t even looked like scoring late on against Crystal Palace, Tottenham or Club Brugge.
Mings farcical blunder costs us
It truly was a shambolic way to concede and ultimately lose in Bruges on Wednesday, but after Tyrone Mings handled the ball from Emiliano Martinez’s goal kick, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see that happen to us again.
The Villa centre-half was having a solid Champions League debut up to that point and that’s what makes it so frustrating as that incident is what he’ll remember it by moving forward.
Fortunately, he’s got a strong personality and character, so there isn’t much concern about his ability to bounce back from it and continue on his path to becoming a key figure for Emery again this season.
Is the right message coming out after games?
From John McGinn calling for perspective after our defeat to Tottenham to Ezri Konsa saying we need to move on quickly and Emery highlighting our mistake as the turning point in the game against Club Brugge, are we hearing the right messages from the group at the moment?
Of course, we’ve been exceptional for two years now, we should stay positive and this is still a mini dip in form in the bigger picture as there is a long way to go in the season, but accountability and a clear understanding that we’re nowhere near our best at the minute must surely be the internal message if not the one being portrayed in the media?
Villa are evidently struggling to produce consistent quality in attacking areas and our level has dropped since that last-minute equaliser from Bournemouth as we’ve become increasingly sloppy and lethargic, and so it would be good to hear an acknowledgement that we have to improve as we clearly aren’t playing to our standard right now.
Call for a big reaction…again
The expectation was that we’d see a reaction in midweek after our heavy defeat to Tottenham, and while we did the sensible thing in an away game in Europe by trying to play at our tempo early on and take the crowd out of it, we once again failed to kick on from that point and take control of the game.
That in turn is now three defeats on the spin for Villa across all competitions and we’re now winless in four. It doesn’t get much more difficult than a trip to Anfield to face in-form Liverpool next, and some may well be looking for the international break as an opportunity to get some respite and reset.
However, we have to show up on Saturday night otherwise we could be in real trouble. Villa under Emery have shown that we can beat anyone on our day if we play to the best of our ability, the question is whether or not we can do so, as uncharacteristically we’ve not been anywhere near it for three games now and we must respond to this adversity we’re facing.
