Aston Villa News 24/7Apologies for the delay. This one hurts, it took some serious motivation to pull it together. I still haven’t seen the whole game, not sure I want to right now, so I can’t really comment on what went wrong. You’ve no doubt all got your own ideas.
I would like to pause briefly to look at the team passing maps side by side though. It’s frequently the case that this level of data won’t reveal much, it’s just a mass of blue and red lines, but this game is a little different and illustrates an important point beautifully.
I know one or two people will focus on a single metric, predominantly the number of passes, to determine the quality or otherwise of the football on display, but that view is completely undone by games like this. Villa actually completed more passes than Newcastle, a 53% share, and a better completion rate, 86% to Newcastle’s 79%, but Newcastle thrashed us 6-0.
The passing maps below illustrate perfectly why all those passes achieved nothing. Villa’s map on the right shows the bulk of those passes took place in our own half and were lateral passes. By contrast, look at Newcastle on the left, look at how many if their passes are vertical, forward passes.
You can pass the ball around among the back four all day long, but you don’t score many goals without getting into the final third. Here’s the same two graphics from above isolating the final third of the pitch and you can see how much busier Newcastle were. It doesn’t matter how many of those lines are red, they peppered our box and it paid off, goals 2 through 5 essentially coming from second phase play following failed attempts to clear our lines.
So, for what it’s worth, here’s the rest of the stats and a new version of the average position map which now includes the opposition. We didn’t have a single shot on target during the 90 minutes, Steve Harper was largely a spectator.
And we had a penalty. Shocking.
| 6 | Newcastle | August 22nd 2010 | Aston Villa | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 50% | Possession % | 50% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 17 | Shots | 6 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 11 | On Target | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 10 | Corners | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Offsides | 5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 12′ Barton, 31′, 87′ Nolan, 34′, 67′, 90′ Carroll, | Scorers | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Barton, Smith, Perch | Booked | Reo-Coker | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sent Off | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 258 | Good Passes | 288 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 47% | CPS % | 53% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 70 | Bad Passes | 48 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 79% | Completion % | 86% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 17 | Interceptions | 22 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 34 | Tackles Won | 28 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 31 | Tackles Lost | 36 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 52% | Success % | 44% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2 | Blocks | 4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 18 | Free Kicks | 16 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Average Position Maps | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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You can find Statshacks from other games here.
[Original data and graphics courtesy of ESPN and The Guardian]
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21 Comments to “Statshack – Newcastle 6 Aston Villa 0”
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Wow – Downing spent alot of time not being out wide…and Carew shouldn’t be playing behind Young, IMO…don’t know if that was by design, or by accident.
the avg pos maps often need some narration…
downing spent some time on the right, as he normally does, so that will move his average position into the centre. that said, his passing map shows a bit too much roving for my liking and albrighton wasn’t in the game at all during the hour he was on the pitch.
whether it’s gabby or ash playing up there, their mobility will always plot them in a more advanced position than carew or heskey on average. that doesn’t mean they were literally always ahead of the bigger man.
you have to remember things like set plays, newcastle had 10 corners and carew is generally helping out defensively, while ash will more than likely be the lone man near the half way line.
they’re frequently very interesting, but have to be taken with a little salt.
Acknowledging the caveats and disclaimers, I think the pictures still tell quite a story – AV with only one player beyond the circle, Newscastle with four. (And I think Ashley Young was the only AV player who gave a maximum effort in that game.) The positions of the defensive four are similar, but Albrighton does not look too imposing with an average position alongside Luke Young.
yes, albrighton and luke young were actually almost on top of each other, i separated them so you could see them. marc didn’t get into this game at all during his 58 minutes on the pitch.
you’re right that the relative position of the players tells us a lot about the game. i think we could probably describe in terms of territory. it’s a key component that is recognised in rugby, but not so much in football unfortunately.
in this case, although newcastle had possession of the ball for the same amount of time as villa, they worked it into the final third and made the most of their opportunities. apparently villa lacked that same penetration.
i did notice on ITV’s new live console that they’re splitting possession into possession in one’s own half and in the opposition half. i might look to work that in in future somehow.
I noticed during the match that we tried to take everything down the right side. Although its a good point about Downing switching sides periodically, the average position seems to show that we played almost exclusively on the right side of the pitch. Anyone have a reason?
Warnock certainly looks isolated out there with no-one to link-up with. Albrighton is on top of Luke Young which isn’t going to help move the ball forward and, as previously noted, I cannot see a reason why Carew should be behind Young on average.
your eyes didn’t deceive you. 48% of attacks were focused on the right, 24% through the middle and 27% down the left.
that’s a mirror image of the stats i used to see favouring the left before milner joined and ash was the focus of everything going forward. that slowly became more balanced as milner eased in.
i’d understand it if albrighton had been in the game, but he barely touched the ball.
well stats show Albrighton should have been rested, as with Downing, both needed to be pushing forward more…
However the stats do tell a good story for villa, things like completion rates, intercepts, possession (when being beaten) are all high. And as I suspected, we failed on having a ball winner in the middle of the park with Milner gone, Ireland should have played higher, and Young wide instead of Albrighton. NRC in the middle with Petrov probably could have led to a better result. Also Warnock needed a rest too, he looked slower than usual
i think you’re absolutely right.
i can’t grumble about the starting line up, it was the one i picked in the preview, but unstated caveat had to be that ireland would be fit, will and able to play alongside stan.
with hindsight, that clearly wasn’t the case and if he started at all, it should have been as the central attacking midfielder with ash pushed out to the right to give albrighton a rest and NRC in the middle to give the back four the protection it needed.
It’s all about Carew. I’ve been saying this for a while now: I can tell within the 1st 10-15 mins whether it is worth keeping him on the field. It was not to do with the penalty miss, but if he gets penalised by the ref for a 50/50 early in the game, then more often than not that will be the end of his performance for the day.
It’s time for a new big man. Fir now, I’ll take Heskey.
you could be entirely correct… apart from the last part about heskey. obviously.
i’ve mentioned it more than once already i’m sure, but carew’s leadership from the front against west ham was phenomenal. of course we shouldn’t need that to play, but i think when he’s in that mood, it’s impossible for the rest of the team not to follow him.
maybe that works both ways.
That’s what does my head in: it’s sublime or ridiculous. I guess the biggest question is: does he know before hand whether he gonna play properly or does he just give up when the ref upsets him? If it is the former, then there is hope. A good man manager may be able to get in his head and sort him out. If it is the latter then there is no hope.
I, for one though, have seen enough. Change needed.
Got to say I agree. I’m not sure that we will have the ability to sort out the manager and get a striker in the door this window. I’m also not entirely sure about Heskey as his replacement. I would play Gabby (when healthy) with Ireland behind. Young then goes back to wing and we solve the “tiredness” issue by having a good rotation of wing players.
In Gabby’s place, why not give Delfonso a run? I thought he showed real promise the past couple of seasons — for some reason he has dropped below Weimann on the depth chart.
Good point about Carew, the missed penalty was his turning point, from there Villa’s great start was quickly demolished, much like Carew’s self esteem as the ball flew hard and high
A rumour states there will be an announcement in regards to a manager on Thurs. Another source says a candidate will be at the Everton game. The second source seems to be far more reliable from past titbits of info. Promising news on the manager front perhaps?
i read these rumours dragged from forums too. personally, i think that’s exactly where they belong.
one was from a forum, the other from another “source” the other has actually come good with most info early, but im still sceptical till something is actually tangible
Press conference going on with KMac and Cuellar. Is that right?
the pre-match presser ahead of the rapid game tomorrow?
Ah, yes. Sorry, misread the tweet and got all over excited. Apologies all. Thought something was ACTUALLY going to happen at our football club. I’m getting really pussed off that we are not going up sign ANYONE before the window closes.
ah yes, i saw you joined us on twitter. i love twitter, a lot of people don’t get it, but it’s exactly what you make it based on who you follow.
over time you also get to see the routine of press conferences and the subsequent flow of information out to the traditional media sources.
Also, apologies for failing to proof read. Standards my boy, standards!