There can’t be too many people close to Martin O’Neill’s innermost thoughts. In fact, there may be a few who wonder whether he is close to his innermost thoughts sometimes, but I couldn’t possibly comment. I’m certainly not among the inner sanctum so it’s idle speculation on my part here, but is it possible that MON’s transfer dealings to date reveal a tactician who is actually ahead of the curve? Wait, hear me out here!

MON’s activity in the transfer market has been the source of much heated debate from, well, the second transfer window probably. Even the most impatient, hyper-critical fan gave him a pass on the first window since he barely had 3 weeks to operate in and funding was questionable until Randy Lerner came on board 10 days later.

MON’s critics in this area, and they are many, will point to the pedestrian speed at which he appears to operate and will not hesitate to list what they perceive as his failures among the players that he has brought to the club. The successes are frequently glossed over or even dismissed entirely as if they couldn’t possibly make up for the fact that players such as Wayne Routledge have spent some time in the employment of Aston Villa FC.

However, is it possible that in bringing together the wing3rs (I may have to trademark that word) MON has revealed his evil genius and vision for the future style of play at Aston Villa Football Club?

I’ve talked about this before and I have to admit that they haven’t quite delivered the shed load of goals I was expecting, but they’ve certainly shown signs that if and when it all clicks, they could be absolutely devastating. In that blog I was excited about the prospect of Milner, Ash & Downing all swapping positions during a game and I’ve talked since about the need to prop that up with two holding players behind them, not just Petrov, but I haven’t yet had chance to explore the benefits of having wingers playing on the “wrong” wing according to which foot they favour. Until now.

Inspired by the brilliant Jonathon Wilson, who may have coined the phrase “Inside-Out Wingers” and if so I doth my cap in his general direction, I created a simple diagram using our team to illustrate the attacking benefits we get from a winger who favours cutting back inside to use his inside foot.

Jonathon frequently cites Leo Messi, unquestionably the best player in the world at the moment in my opinion, as a classic example of a winger playing on the wrong side and I’m going to focus on Stewart Downing, but please don’t think that I’m drawing any parallels beyond them both being left footed!

Of course, this is nothing new at Aston Villa, Ashley Young has been showing what a right footed winger can do on the left since he joined us and though he may now start on the right since Downing regained his fitness, he still spends a significant portion of most games on the left.

This is nothing new in football in general either, some more examples cited by Wilson include Dennis Tueart, Chris Waddle, Marc Overmars and Robert Pires. More recently Arjen Robben at Bayern Munich, Adam Johnson & Craig Bellamy at Man City, Damien Duff now on the right at Fulham, left footer Charles N’Zogbia also spending time on the right at Wigan and we also got to see Steed Malbranque ourselves this week playing in a new role on the left for Sunderland. We’ve also seen Gerrard and Rooney employed as left wingers of a kind for both club and country.

I’ve used Downing in the diagram below to show the options that open up when he cuts back on to his left foot while playing on the right and in doing so reveal the best case that can be made for Luke Young playing at right back and one that seems to have been ignored in the debate among fans thus far.

As you can see, when Downing cuts inside it presents him the option to either shoot on goal himself or deliver an inswinging cross with his stronger foot, both of which he and Ash do regularly. But another option opens up when you have a full back like Luke Young or Stephen Warnock making an overlapping run. Warnock does this several times a game on the left and even if he isn’t used, he forces defenders to pay attention to him opening up space for Ash to cut into.

Carlos Cuellar isn’t a natural full back and while it’s true that he does get forward at times, he doesn’t offer the same attacking prowess that Luke Young does. The knock on effect is that Stewart Downing doesn’t receive the same benefit of an overlapping full back when he cuts inside as Ash can on the other side of the pitch.

That’s no criticism of Carlos by the way, I think he’s been doing a decent enough job on the right, but if it means that we lose some of the benefit of Downing as an “inside-out winger” then it further questions the logic of leaving two natural right backs languishing on the bench.

Just to complete the illustration I’ve shown Ash on the left wing making a more traditional outswinging cross from the byline with his left foot and in doing so, you can see how it leaves Stephen Warnock with little to contribute offensively besides providing an option for back pass if Ash can’t get his cross away.

Evil Genius or Just Lucky

So, was bringing the wing3rs together part of MON’s plot for world domination? Of course he’ll never tell us, so we’re left to speculate. On one hand, we saw from the swiftness he went after Ashley Young that it was clear he was brought in with the intention of being a key long term player on the left side.

You may or may not be aware that when MON arrived at Villa Park, James Milner was already set to sign permanently on the back of his loan spell from Newcastle, but the deal was literally pulled at the last minute and he was recalled to St. James’ Park. The fact that MON went back in for him suggests that he always had Milner in mind.

It’s less clear with Downing, but there was talk that MON had approached Gareth Southgate about acquiring Downing’s services some time before Middlesbrough were relegated. I can’t confirm that, but if true, it would go a long way to suggesting that this is a part of MON’s master plan and therefore he’s very much up on current trends in football. Not quite stuck in the 1970’s as some critics might claim.

On the other hand, strong full backs who like to get forward, making overlapping runs with the ability to deliver a decent outswinging cross from the byline are almost a prerequisite to squeezing the maximum benefit out of inside-out wingers. Again, the absolute epitome of this in action is Messi and Dani Alves at Barcelona.

I suspect you’d struggle to construct a convincing argument that the full back position is one that MON has treated with very much priority over the years. I believe he was a long time admirer of Stephen Warnock and Luke Young is a surely great player, but I’ve seen little to convince me that MON subscribes to the general consensus about the importance of the full back in any 4-4-2, let alone one that employs two wingers who will want to cut inside to use their stronger foot.

And therein, as ever, lies the mystery of Martin O’Neill. Sometimes he really is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. I’m no closer to knowing whether this system he’s constructed came from luck or judgment, I just know I’m a huge fan of the attacking prowess it can deliver. It’s more than possible that the missing ingredient is Luke Young at right back and with Richard Dunne clearly struggling for fitness, we may get to see him playing there soon.