Aston Villa advanced to the semi-finals of the Europa Conference League this week, and a big reason behind that was the impact of Matty Cash against Lille on Thursday night.
The 26-year-old missed four games due to a hamstring injury he sustained while on international duty last month, and having been an unused substitute in our win at Arsenal last weekend, his last outing for Villa was our draw with West Ham Utd on March 17.
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Given the nature of the injury and the difficulty posed by an impressive Lille side, it was a significant boost in itself that he was fit enough to feature and be restored to his right-back role, but the Polish international proved to be decisive to the outcome of the tie.
Not only did Cash complete the full 120 minutes of the game, which was an impressive feat in itself given the context above, but he smashed home our all-important late goal to level the scores on aggregate before then slotting home his penalty in the shootout to help us book our spot in the last four of the competition.
It was a fundamental contribution at a time when we desperately needed some inspiration, and Cash arguably was our biggest goal threat throughout normal time having had a couple of opportunities at goal after making excellent runs into advanced areas.
That’s all before we’ve even discussed how important his presence is in the Villa backline, as although he still has detractors and doubters – and at times it’s warranted like with any player, as he has to raise his level to meet the demands of Emery – he is a pivotal option for the Villa boss.
Cash adds balance to the side with his defensive ability coupled with his energy and attacking threat down the right flank, while he of course also allows Ezri Konsa to shift inside into his favoured centre-half role.
It has a significant knock-on effect for the team, and although we conceded two poor goals again in midweek, there is certainly a more settled and comfortable look to the defence with that personnel at Emery’s disposal.
A major issue we had at Lille though was our inability to break their high press and play our way out from the back to get our midfielders involved in the game.
Time and time again the ball was shifted back and fourth between our centre-halves and full-backs who were put under pressure, and that undoubtedly stifled our ability to play with any rhythm and control to build sustained pressure.
That’s an area where Cash can still improve as when the onus is on him to do more in possession, he has to be more impactful with his distribution to add a different dynamic to our approach play.
Nevertheless, he ultimately made a massive contribution to our season on Thursday night and reiterated his importance in this squad, and hopefully he can build off that, stay healthy, and play a big role in the last month of the season.