Aston Villa News 24/7Let’s be completely honest here, Chelsea have a considerably better side than we do and we have little practical reason to expect to beat them, yet their record at Villa Park isn’t that good. Over the last five visits now they’ve won only once, lost twice and drawn twice.
We beat them 2-1 last season despite having just 32% possession and being out-passed 407 to 167, a 29% share of the completed passes. The season before, Chelsea won 1-0 with a slightly less dominant share of the game.
However, the passing and possession statistics suggest that Villa had a bigger foot in yesterday’s game than in this same fixture in the preceding three seasons. The fact that the completed passes yesterday were the most from both teams in this fixture over the last five years might hint at the open, flowing nature. Or that both sides just moved the ball around with little interest in getting forward, but that doesn’t match my assessment of the game.
But the gap between the two teams in terms of quality on the ball remains significant. To illustrate the scale of the difference I thought I’d look at the comparative passing maps of the two sets of midfield three.
Ancelotti played the side he said he would in the 4-3-3 he said he would. Ramires, Mikel and Essien are all strong, holding, box-to-box types and sat in the middle of the park, Mikel the more central, deeper of the three, Ramires on the left, Essien on the right. The passing map below reveals how well disciplined they are at operating in their own areas of the pitch.
It may have been forced on him by Albrighton’s illness, but Houllier put together the 4-2-3-1 many of us have wanted to see for some time. Petrov and Reo-Coker as the double pivot, Ireland as the central attacking midfielder charged with getting forward to support Carew, which almost paid off inside the opening few minutes.
It’s a pretty sobering graphic, isn’t it?
The Chelsea trio completed 159 passes, 36% of the team total. Essien was the top passer on the pitch with 65 completed passes. The three Villa players completed 64 passes between them, less than Essien alone, which was 25% of Villa’s total.
Clearly that triangle of players operate as the central distribution hub and there’s a great deal of room for improvement. However, one thing that’s difficult to quantify statistically is how they operated as a unit when they didn’t have the ball, and there I think they did pretty well.
Average Position Map
Houllier might take it as a compliment that his last two opponents both went back to the drawing board at half time and made a tactical switch, an admission, perhaps, that they got it wrong, or at least recognised that it wasn’t working.
Ancelotti brought off Kakuta, who was struggling to get into the game, and brought on Zhirkov to run the left flank, Malouda shifting to a central-right position supporting Anelka. Kakuta and Zhirkov are both show on the graphic as dotted lines, Malouda’s position is a reflection of the tactical switch.
Regardless, Chelsea’s focus down their left, our right, is not difficult to see, the relative position of Beye and Downing providing adequate evidence. In fact, 44% of their attacks were through the left third of the pitch, 31% through the middle and just 24% went down the right. Villa focused 53% down Ash’s side of the pitch, just 18% through the middle and 29% down the right.
Overall, a clear improvement in terms of how we measure up to Chelsea at Villa Park, but the result no better than anything in the past. We might have nicked it at the death, both sides could have scored a couple each during normal time.
Neither did, all sensible observers are satisfied, if not very pleased, with a draw.
| 0 | Aston Villa | October 16th 2010 | Chelsea | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 39% | Possession % | 61% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 13 | Shots | 15 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2 | On Target | 4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 9 | Corners | 5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2 | Offsides | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Scorers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Warnock, Ireland, Clark, Young | Booked | Essien, Terry, McEachran | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sent Off | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 254 | Good Passes | 442 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 36% | CPS % | 64% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 46 | Bad Passes | 74 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 82% | Completion % | 86% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 28 | Interceptions | 13 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 31 | Tackles Won | 37 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 28 | Tackles Lost | 33 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 53% | Success % | 53% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Blocks | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 15 | Free Kicks | 13 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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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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8 Comments to “Statshack – Aston Villa – Chelsea 0”
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Very interesting. I’d say we are improving but still aren’t seeing the finished product yet. I don’t know if it is the need for more training under Houllier or a player issue, but the fact that we are still hanging around near the top of the table is encouraging.
Dan, one thing I have noticed in the past on your player position maps is that A Young is always showing ahead of the center forward (Heskey, Carew, whoever) despite being in the hole behind the center forward. I always assumed that this was just an artifact of Ash making runs into the box — he wasn’t really playing that far up, I figured it was just that the average position made it look like he was.
Now, look at your graphic above. Ireland, playing the same position behind center forward, is where you’d expect him – slightly behind. Look at Ash’s position — he is up even with Carew.
I’m not sure what to make of it but this match clearly shows that it is how/where Ashley is playing not the position. Does this have an impact?
excellent spot.
i had a conversation with ian from news & views recently and this is an illustration of the point i was trying to make to him of the difference between ireland and ash in the central attacking role from midfield.
in truth, when ash played “in the hole” i think we were looking at a 4-4-1-1 that was on the border of a outright 4-4-2.
i don’t think ireland was playing the same role (i hope not anyway) and was actually the central player of the 3 in a 4-2-3-1. the system i was delighted to see employed with the right players in the right place.
subtle but important differences. in this case, aside from beye and downing clearly being pegged back so badly, the shape in the average position map is actually very good for once. you can make it out as a 4-2-3-1.
as i recall, i’m pretty sure ash & downing both stuck to their respective wings for the duration of the game, so we don’t see them artificially moved toward the centre line to compensate.
what i’m hoping to see from ireland is more of a play maker than an auxiliary striker as ash has been. he’s very much the point of a triangle with stan & nrc, rather than the man behind carew or heskey.
the other thing to consider is how the possession effects the map. formations are most relevant when you *don’t* have the ball, it’s really a defensive shape, when you have the ball everything is far more fluid. as we had about a third ownership of the ball in this one i suspect that makes the map a more pleasing shape.
but overall, you’re exactly correct that ash covers a lot of grass and heskey/carew tend to be less mobile (plus have defensive duties at set plays) so will appear on average to be deeper, even though they’re technically the top of the tree.
Dan,
On a related note. Where do these stats come from? Not just the source but rather how do they calculate the number of passes, location, success, etc. for each player? Does a computer do this on the fly or is there an army of people watching the game and furiously writing notes!
the ultimate source is Opta. http://www.optasports.com/
they obviously won’t spill the beans on exactly how it’s done, but they’ll employ an army of analysts to watch the games and gather the data. i’m sure most of it is gathered manually by observation as i find the odd strange error most weeks, but nothing major.
they then feed the data (near live i think) to the licensees such as the guardian and espn to do with what they do at their end. i then grab what i want from there and lay my own graphics over the top.
the only thing missing, which is available for champions league games (and later stages of europa league i think) is a break down of passing into categories of short, medium and long.
you also get distance covered by player, a player passing matrix breaking down who is passing to who and actual time the ball is in play, not just a percentage of possession.
not sure whether it’s Opta providing that data though. it’s a shame, i started setting up a euro version of the statshack to make use of the extra info, but it’s not to be again this season.
I thought it sounded like a huge effort. Great data though. Thanks for putting this into such a concise and readable format on your posts — I can’t speak for others but it really adds another dimension to my enjoyment of Villa’s play!
thanks. it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, purists will turn their nose up, but i enjoy it. i wish their were even better quality stats available, but then we might not have anything to argue about.
Yes, while we are back patting, it does astound me that the detailed and considered nature of your work doesn’t (yet) attract a wider audience than the self indulgent babble on other such sites.
thank you, nan. best kept secret on the that there interwebz!