The most significant statistic in this game was the sheer number of passes. You have to go back to Wigan at Villa Park in April 2007 to find the last game with more complete passes – 361. In fact, there’s only one other game with more passes since MON came to Villa; Charlton at home in September 2006. Incidentally, the Wigan game finished 1-1, the Charlton game was a 2-0 win.

Perceptions

I think I’ve said before that one of the things I like about compiling the data for these Statshacks is when I spot something I didn’t expect, or something that completely challenges a view I held. In this case, I said in the first review post that Stephen Warnock didn’t have his best of games and while that may be true, I wouldn’t want to give the impression that he had a bad day at the office at all.

Here’s the thing; Warnock attempted a couple of through balls early in the game, one to Ash I think and the other to Gabby, although don’t quote me on the details. The point is that they didn’t work out. Both were cases where the players involved weren’t really on the same wavelength. Warnock may have over hit the pass, but he was also expecting his team mates to make runs they didn’t make. When that happens, everyone stands around looking at each other and no one looks too clever.

That probably stuck in my mind, one or two similar instances occurred later in the game, and clouded my judgment. But when I looked at the data, I found that Warnock actually connected the most passes of any player in claret and blue – 55. Surprisingly, a little more than James Milner who made 51 successful passes. Most importantly of course, one of Warnock’s passes was the assist for Carew’s equaliser. That makes up for a couple of stray passes in the final third of the pitch early in the game, surely?

This graphic shows the two passes that seemed to stick in my mind on the left, all the good passes in the middle and then the one, crucial pass on the right:-

So, sorry to Stephen if I was a little harsh with the first post.

Bad Refereeing Again

Aside from the blatant penalty we didn’t get when Gabby was dragged down by Vanden Borre and the slightly generous one we did eventually get, I actually just wanted to highlight two bad calls, or non-calls actually, that should have ruled Portsmouth’s goal out. It doesn’t really matter now because we got the winner eventually, but if this had ended as a draw, we would once again be looking at the referee and be unable to exclude him from being a factor in the result.

I spent some time analyzing the goal and started to prepare some graphics, but as it’s largely academic I’ll just walk you through it briefly instead. The reason I wanted to look at the goal more closely was to see whether Warnock had done as much as he could to prevent it since the break came down his side and I was checking out his performance in particular.

What I found was that Pompey launched the attack off the back of Mokoena hacking down Gabby from behind, but the referee decided there was no infringement. Warnock had played a ball up to Gabby who had his back to goal in a position that is not dissimilar to the right hand graphic above showing the assist to John Carew.

Mokoena got too close to Gabby and bundled him over with at least enough contact to the back of the ankles to warrant a free kick. He miscontrolled the ball under the challenge and it looped to Kanu who was in space. At that exact moment Vanden Borre saw the opportunity and began surging up their right hand side of the pitch.

Warnock initially covered Kanu, who was carrying the ball forward, but recognised the threat of the Belgian right back and backed off to cover the run. Petrov had fallen back from an advanced position and shadowed Kanu long enough to force him to make the pass, by which time Vanden Borre and Warnock were in a foot race. Dunne was heading into the box (near post) to cover, followed by Collins and Cuellar, who was tracking Utaka, all coming from the left side of the pitch to one degree or another. (That’s Portsmouth’s left, our right)

When Kanu played the ball into the right channel, Vanden Borre was a fraction offside. At this point we’ve got a failure to call the foul on Gabby at the head of this move and now a failure to flag an offside.

Warnock would probably agree that he should have stayed on his feet longer, but it was persistence, a bit of skill and little bit of luck that allowed Vanden Borre to get the better of what is referred to as a “duel” just inside the area.

At this point, Cuellar spotted Boateng entering the box and handed Utaka over to Collins so the Spaniard could deal with the more dangerous threat near the penalty spot. Vanden Borre picked out Boateng perfectly, but he must have received a good shout from Michael Brown behind him and stepped over the ball. How many times do we see that move end in failure when not being executed by the yellow shirts of Brazil? This time it came off and we know that Brown took the shot very well indeed.

It was a very nice move that, notwithstanding the indiscretions apparently ignored by the referee, probably deserved the end product it received. If any questions needed to be asked in dispatches about whether everyone executed their defensive responsibilities correctly, we might stop to wonder how it was that Brown was apparently free to ghost in unattended. Those questions may lead to James Milner though, so we’ll move on.

The Passing Game

With almost three fifths of the possession and close to a three fifths share of the completed passes in this match, it’s fair to say that Villa bossed proceedings. Pompey sat deep, but I’d stop shot of accusing them of parking the bus in quite the same way that Everton did. Then again, despite their plight, they were the home team.

I’ve talked about this a fair amount this season, there are many teams out there who pay us the respect of sitting deep these days because they know that if they don’t, and we get behind them, they’re in trouble. The pace and industry of Young, Downing, Milner and Gabby would be devastating if left to do its worst.

We’ve been forced to settle for a few draws recently in games that we thoroughly deserved to win and since we’ve only lost 6 games all season, it’s going to be the failure to turn a few draws into wins that costs us a Champions League place should we fall short.

The simple fact is that we need to be a bit more imaginative than peppering a box with crosses when teams play defensively. There were 31 failed crosses in this game and 22 against Everton. I’ve shown all 54 unsuccessful crosses in the graphic below.

Now of course, if a couple of those crosses were delivered a little sweeter, right onto the forehead of a large Norwegian for instance, it all starts to look a bit better. The truth is that a lot of these crosses weren’t anywhere close to being dangerous and those that were were easily defended against.

The final point to consider though is that we’ve fallen behind and had to come back in a number of games against sides who would have been very happy to settle for a point, let alone get themselves in front. That allows them the luxury of playing in a manner they wouldn’t if we had scored first. On that basis, I’m not sure this apparent percentage game of crossing is a fair reflection on our true style, but it certainly highlights a major weakness in certain scenarios.

This is exactly why MON needs to find the personnel he can entrust to carry out a Plan B when we need it. Although bringing Heskey on is a little formulaic, today it was a good move to change the dynamic of the game. He’s the sort of player who will drop a little deeper and link up play in front of the central defenders, either drawing them out or setting up danger just outside the box.

Ironically, in the end, the goal came from a quickly taken free kick, a cross, a near post run to flick on for some good old fashioned poaching at the back stick. But I still think we can chalk finding the winner up to changing the tactics, however subtle.

Average Position Map

And finally, the average positioning. Reflecting the fact that Portsmouth played a bigger part in this game than Everton did in the last game, all but two Villa players were less advanced on average.

You may be surprised to learn that one of those players was Carlos Cuellar, who actually attempted more crosses than Warnock managed from the other side. The operative word being attempted though. Other than that, he got up and down the right side, made 41 passes and was also our top tackler, winning 7 tackles and losing just 2.

And you’ll no doubt notice that Gabby is so much further up the pitch than he was against Everton. He had a lot more freedom and space in this game to get on the ball and have an impact, crucially working the left channel, which is exactly where the penalty, had we actually been awarded it, would have come from.

1	Portsmouth	Apr 18th 2010	Aston Villa	2
	43%	Possession %	57%
	19	Shots	13
	6	On Target	9
	7	Corners	6
	3	Offsides	1
16′ Carew, 82′ Delfouneso		Scorers	9′ Brown
		Booked
		Sent Off
	245	Good Passes	346
	41%	CPS %	59%
	69	Bad Passes	72
	78%	Completion %	83%
	18	Interceptions	23
	38	Tackles Won	36
	27	Tackles Lost	25
	0	Blocks	8
	13	Free Kicks	8
Starting XI: 1. Friedel 24. Cuellar 25. Warnock 29. Collins 5. Dunne 19. Petrov 8. Milner 7. Young 6. Downing 11. Agbonlahor 10. Carew Subs: 22. Guzan 14. Delfouneso 4. Sidwell 20. Reo-Coker 47. Clark 23. Beye 18. Heskey
Average Position Map

[Original data and graphics courtesy of ESPN and The Guardian]