Watching Aston Villa shuttle the ball back and forth at Brentford on Saturday afternoon it seemed impossible to think this was the same team that just four months ago had pushed Paris Saint-Germain to their very limits in the Champions League quarter-final at an electrified Villa Park.
- Published prior to Villa's 3-0 loss to Crystal Palace
And in a way, it wasn’t. Marcus Rashford sparked Villa’s revival that day and Marco Asensio pulled the strings as the number ten. It was the January loan signings of these two players that had woken Villa up after a sluggish autumn and winter so it should hardly be a surprise that without either player – and without new additions this summer – Villa have returned to a stagnant state.
Nevertheless the Brentford defeat was a new nadir for Unai Emery, and although he might complain about a lack of new signings what’s far more worrying for Villa supporters is that the problem was of his own tactical making.
Villa played in exactly the same way as in the 0-0 draw with Newcastle United, which can essentially be boiled down to slow possession football around the back that waits for opportunities to thread passes into Villa’s two number tens. It’s fast becoming Villa’s only way of playing under Emery.
When Emery first arrived at Villa he was at the cutting edge of modern tactics. The press-baiting and the ‘artificial transitions’ – finding Morgan Rogers on the half-turn by manoeuvring the opponent until Villa have created what looks like a counter-attack – was brand new to the Premier League and the leading fight back against Pep Guardiola’s positional play.
Not anymore. Everyone understands how to avoid this now; how to refuse to press, sit in a narrow and compact defensive shell, and block the passing lanes into the number tens. That’s what Brentford did and Villa had no answer. They won’t be the last to do so this season.
Emery needs to shake things up, which is where Villa’s tactical congealment relates to their inactivity in the transfer market. Seven of the 11 players who started at Brentford played under Steven Gerrard and it would have been eight if Ezri Konsa wasn’t suspended. Eight of the starters were aged 28 or older.
The Premier League is beginning to pass these ageing Villa players by and the same can be said for Emery’s tactics. It’s as if the manager and his team have grown old together.
What’s needed is a marked move towards the latest tactical trend: the return of direct football via longer balls that bypass an opposition midfield press. Villa need to turn defenders around, need to work on stretching the pitch lengthways with longer balls forward and widthways with raking diagonals.
All of that, Emery might argue, isn’t possible without new signings to reinvigorate the side. But Donyell Malen is still not getting game time and Evann Guessand’s introduction has been too slow.
More importantly, Villa’s mishandling of PSR means they aren’t going to be able change too much before the window shuts. Supporters complain about the unfairness of the PSR rules and it’s true they need some tweaking, but the Premier League is not to blame for Villa spending 90% of their turnover on wages, or for their failure to successfully move on fringe players, or for signing so many players who weren’t good enough for the first team.
A confluence of risky financial decisions and PSR’s increasingly hostile restrictions has Villa bumping up against a ceiling. The last thing they need at this juncture is for Emery’s tactical ideas to max out, too.
We are only two matches into the new season. It’s far too early to predict their demise, but Villa’s home game against Crystal Palace this weekend looks significant. Emery has repeatedly walked into Oliver Glasner’s traps, losing 4-1 in their last league meeting and 3-0 in the FA Cup semi-final.
How Emery approaches Sunday’s game will tell us what Villa’s 2025/26 will look like. If he does not adapt, if he tries to beat Palace in the same old way, Villa will lose – and it will start to look like the Emery era has already peaked.
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