Aston Villa boss Unai Emery was praised for his tactical astuteness in our 1-0 win over Crystal Palace on Saturday by both Matty Cash and John McGinn.
An own goal from Joachim Andersen was all that split the two sides in a scrappy encounter, with Cash’s cross bundled into the back of his own net by the Palace defender for what proved to be the winning goal.
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While Alex Moreno enjoyed plenty of the ball in the attacking third in the first half, Cash was also pushing up on the opposite flank to add width and a different attacking dynamic to our play.
For the most part under Emery, our focus has been pushing forward on the left side, but there has been a notable difference in recent outings where Cash is given more license to go forward rather than tuck inside and add a defensive number at the back when we’re in or out of possession.
As quoted by BBC Sport, McGinn revealed in his post-match interview that the goal was the result of a tactical tweak from Emery for the encounter with Palace, as he had instructions to drop into space in midfield and allow Cash to overlap and get forward beyond him to play him in behind in the space created out wide.
We saw it perfectly illustrated in the goal below, and so it was clear that not only had Emery identified a weakness that we could exploit, but that the players were also able to execute that game-plan decisively to make the difference.
McGinn: "The manager was trying to get myself, Buendia & Ramsey into those spaces & use the full-backs. Sometimes he wants them to stay but today wanted them to get forward. Great run from Matty Cash & it made my pass easy."
The space, the run, the pass…👏🏽🟣🔵#avfc #UTV pic.twitter.com/ZcdTCurwrv
— Talk Villa (@thetalkvilla) March 5, 2023
Cash was also full of praise for the Villa boss when speaking after the game, as he revealed that they have been working closely on his attacking qualities and when he goes and doesn’t go forward to join in with attacks and create a dangerous overlapping run.
“I’ve had to wait my time a little bit to get forward,” he said, as per VillaTV. “Me and the manager have worked closely on that in terms of having my time when to go and when not to go.
“And here we thought there were spaces on the sides for both sides, that’s what the manager spoke about on Friday. So, he’s a tactical genius.”
Time will tell if we see more of that from the Polish international moving forward, as he also did brilliantly with his aggressive press and assist for Ollie Watkins in the defeat to Arsenal.
In turn, if we can find the right balance and identify which options will hurt the opposition more week to week, Villa will no doubt continue to pose problems as we keep our run of scoring in every game under Emery thus far going.