Aston Villa News 24/7A tale of two halves, or Jeckyll and Hyde as I sometimes like to think of performances so different either side of the break. That might be overstating things, but at half time Villa had 49% of possession, by full time that had shrunk to just 42%.
That might not seem like an enormous swing, and it’s an oversimplification, but if you assumed the ball was in the possession of one team or the other for all of the 90 minutes, it’s possible to calculate the possession for the second half alone and it comes out as 65/35 in favour of Wolves. I could believe that.
Further, both teams had completed 112 passes by half time, but by the time the final whistle was blown, Wolves had completed almost 100 passes more than Villa. To put that into perspective, Wolves completed 169 passes during the 2nd half and failed to connect with 34, which is a 83% completion rate. Villa completed just 72 and failed with 41, that’s a completion rate of just 62%.
When you consider the estimated 2nd half possession of 65% and Wolves’ share of the completed passes during the 2nd period was 70%, it’s easy to appreciate how they managed to get back on terms, but more difficult to understand how they lost.
I expected Wolves to have a bigger go at Warnock than they did and while David Edwards did push up on that side, it was actually Matthew Jarvis, the goal scorer on their left, who pushed on and impacted the game the most. He may well be responsible as much as anything for taking Albrighton out of the game, neutralising a key weapon.
In the end, as is so often the case, it came down to one moment. Stephen Warnock, who wouldn’t have been on the pitch if the manager had made the logical substitution earlier in the game, sent in just the right ball and Emile Heskey not only timed his leap to perfection, but executed the header to milk every last inch of power and also nailed the perfect direction to leave Hanhemann no chance.
And that’s it. All the control, all the possession, all the tactics, all the strategy, it all goes out the window and comes down to one moment of individual brilliance. You can’t legislate for that.
It could be claimed that the withdrawal of Kevin Foley and Edwards, who together had been the source of Warnock’s tough time down that wing, was the root cause of their downfall, but that’s easy to point to with hindsight. It could easily just be coincidental, of course, but the ball was moved up through that channel and sent in from that side to the waiting Heskey.
The point? Well, once again, let’s not get carried away. We got a great result, but hardly one carved out from a great performance. However, it’s an away day derby game, all bets are off and all that matters is the result.
I’ll take it, on to the next one.
| 1 | Wolves | September 26th 2010 | Aston Villa | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 58% | Possession % | 42% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 16 | Shots | 10 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 7 | On Target | 8 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 5 | Corners | 4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Offsides | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 61′ Jarvis | Scorers | 25′ Downing, 88′ Heskey | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Craddock | Booked | Warnock, Sidwell | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sent Off | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 281 | Good Passes | 185 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 60% | CPS % | 40% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 78 | Bad Passes | 77 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 78% | Completion % | 70% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 21 | Interceptions | 27 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 32 | Tackles Won | 44 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 43 | Tackles Lost | 34 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 43% | Success % | 56% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 0 | Blocks | 5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 23 | Free Kicks | 15 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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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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12 Comments to “Statshack – Wolves 1 Aston Villa 2 – Jekyll And Hyde Performance”
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Too many fouls given away as well.
I think the key area we need to work on is the feed from both full backs. If they are going to feed the CB’s then they also need to shift it on along the back four. A Collins/Cuellar punt is rarely productive. If the back four can’t shift it around, i think the FB should do the punting up the line.
straight out the MON playbook, nan!
Nailed Villa’s overall problems in the first few paragraphs. What I hope GH brings to the side is an ability to pass the ball when we are under the cosh. I was following the game in the BBC Sport live text and you just knew we were going to concede. We currently have no ability to put our foot on the ball and relieve pressure – we just play on the counter-attack which more often than not results in a very short posession. Counter-attacking football is fine and we certainly have the tools for it, but sometimes you need posession for posessions sake just to take the sting out of the game a little. In truth, this game was just like Stoke, but kudos to us for pulling out the win this time.
there were a lot of similarities to stoke. one thing i didn’t get around to addressing was that we actually won more in the air than we lost in this one. a small, but important detail i think. heskey can take some credit for that too.
You seen this yet?
http://newsarse.com/2010/09/27/new-emile-heskey-cyborg-a-complete-success-claims-houllier/
i have now, shared that on twitter. good stuff!
Watching the game from the stands I got to see a couple of elements that were somewhat reassuring and as I’ve yet to watch the game back on TV I’m unsure as to whether or not the cameras truly did justice to what I saw.
Firstly, I think we’re seeing the revitalisation of NRC as some sort of Michael Essien type. The NRC I saw sat ensconsed in the middle and served to break up play and show relentless energy in being a wholly disruptive influence. Nigel occasionally made strides forward and as his game minutes tick over and confidence builds I think we have in NRC an added dimension that O’Neill ignored for the best part of a season. The guy has a great ‘box-to-box’ engine and if he can adopt a hard tackling role in front of the back four and offload with simple balls to our creative sorts (Downing, Young, Ireland et al) then his reinvention could be tantamount to a new signing.
One player who has given Gerard food for thought is Cuellar. he was immense in the heat of a derby game and proved very much that he’s at home in central defence rather than annexed at right back. It’s possible to argue that derby hostilities aside Cuellar will have infintely more testing days than against a team without a recognised striker or strike partnership but for this game Carlos was steadfast, composed and authoratative – pretty good qualities for a centre-back.
For Albrighton it was a game of two halves and I was surprised that Ireland didn’t replace him after the hour mark. There’s no doubting Marc’s ability as he clearly made Downing’s goal in what was a very effective first half. Unfortunately though, his well ran dry after the re-start with his distribution and legs leaving him as a bit-part player for what part he played in the second 45.
Now, one fascinating aspect is that when Albrighton was subbed that it was Sidwell who replaced him, does it could mean that Houlier lacks faith in Stephen Ireland? For me, I was very surprised that at 1-1 when Houlier chose to rest Marc it was the more defensive minded Sidwell that entered rather than Ireland – anything worth discussion?
Finally, despite the stats, I felt in no way that this game bore any resemblence to the alamo we saw against Everton. The only way I could see Wolves scoring was through a freakish effort (as happened) or after a pin-ball melee rather than us being opened up/caught out of position. With our back four holding their shape incredibly well and with NRC tracking back and robbing Wolves of fluidity through the midfield it was going to take something freakish or exceptional to unlock the exceptional Friedel’s defence.
So far I haven’t mentioned Heskey’s mini-renaissance or the fledgling signs of a Ashley Young revival revival but I guess these were obvious on TV. One last thing though was our support, the Villa fans were superb and it was clear that the team appreciated the vocal support as evidence by Ashley’s ‘windmilling arms’ after Heskey’s goal, winding up the away support to the max.
Next stop White Hart Lane and anything could happen, but we go there we a degree confidence in every department.
some excellent observations. NRC, agree completely, i’d select him ahead of petrov most games, he gives us the bite we need. been saying it for some time, you’re exactly correct, he just need to tighten up his passing, do the simple things and do them well and he’s exactly what we need.
ditto on cuellar, we’re all big fans i think. i like the mobility the collins / cuellar partnership gives us. dunne’s main contribution is organisation i think.
just to correct one point though, it was actually gabby who replaced albrighton. houllier brought sidwell on right at the end in place of petrov.
bringing gabby on for young marc wasn’t odd, what was odd was playing him wide and leaving ash up top.
not sure if we should read anything into ireland’s non-involvement yet, i’m slightly more curious to see whether taking the captain off when we were still at 1-1 is significant or not. we shall see.
Heskey has also achieved a marketing breakthrough! There is a full color picture of him scoring in today’s Washington Post!
next stop MLS!
Hadn’t thought of it like that; that kind of puts a damper on it. Imagine my enthusiasm, though, where Aston Villa is barely ever mentioned in the “Soccer Roundup,” and here we have a game description and a picture.
With regard to Stuart’s comments – I too was baffled by the insertion of Sidwell in place of Albrighton – just what is the situation with Ireland? And if he does play, does he replace Reo-Coker? It would seem that Petrov is the likely candidate to lose playing time, except for the nagging problem of him being captain.
it was gabby who came on for albrighton. not strange in itself, except he was mostly played on the wing while ash stayed up top.
otherwise, yes, the little drum i’ve been banging quietly for a little while now is that our weakest link, IMO, is petrov and that’s awkward for obvious reasons.