For some reason or another I neglected to create a Statshack for the 3-1 victory over Liverpool at Anfield, so I’ll take the rare step here of including it below the stats from last night’s 1-0 loss at Villa Park. It might be interesting to compare the two.

0	Aston Villa	Dec 29th 2009	Liverpool	1
	42	Possession %	58
	9	Shots	15
	4	On Target	4
	8	Corners	10
	0	Offsides	1
		Scorers	93′ Torres
Dunne		Booked	Lucas
		Sent Off
	214	Good Passes	325
	60	Bad Passes	81
	35	Interceptions	18
	36	Tackles Won	37
	21	Tackles Lost	29
	7	Blocks	1
	12	Free Kicks	13
Starting XI: 1. Friedel 2. Young 25. Warnock 24. Cuellar 5. Dunne 19. Petrov 20. Reo-Coker 8. Milner 6. Downing 10. Carew 11. Agbonlahor Subs: 22. Guzan 14. Delfouneso 4. Sidwell 12. Albrighton 29. Collins 23. Beye 16. Delph
Average Position Map

So that was last night, let’s compare that with the game at Anfield back in August.

1	Liverpool	Aug 24th 2009	Aston Villa	3
	68	Possession %	32
	24	Shots	8
	11	On Target	4
	10	Corners	4
	1	Offsides	3
72′ Torres		Scorers	34′ Lucas (OG), 45′ Davies, 75′ A Young (pen)
Reina, Torres, Skrtel		Booked	A Young, Reo-Coker
		Sent Off
	435	Good Passes	196
	76	Bad Passes	66
	15	Interceptions	24
	39	Tackles Won	28
	23	Tackles Lost	28
	3	Blocks	6
	14	Free Kicks	15
Starting XI: 1. Friedel 23. Beye 21. Shorey 24. Cuellar 15. Davies 19. Petrov 4. Sidwell 20. Reo-Coker 8. Milner 7. Young 11. Agbonlahor Subs: 22. Guzan 18. Heskey 26. Gardner 16. Delph 14. Delfouneso 51. Lowry 12. Albrighton
Average Position Map

Statistically speaking, Liverpool played us off the field at Anfield and lost 3-1 with few claiming it was an unworthy victory for Aston Villa. They also edged the stats at Villa Park and the majority will probably feel that Villa were mugged.

I wish we had better statistics in football, but in many ways the frenetic nature of the game doesn’t suit turning it in raw data. Numbers can never tell the full story, but they can paint a fairly revealing picture. However, like one of those 3D computer created pictures from the 80’s, you often need to look at the picture in the right way to truly see what is being revealed.

I think I did a reasonable job recently of showing how Aston Villa could be described as a direct & efficient team based on their passing and shooting statistics. Based on that and the statistics from the two games above, I think it’s easy to see that we were extremely unfortunate to come away from last night’s game without anything to show for it and there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the way MON’s men played.

One thing I’m quite certain about; if we play Blackburn the way we played against Arsenal and Liverpool, but avoid any lapses of concentration, then we’re going to Wembley.  It’s that simple.