It lived up to the preview, we got what we expected at the Britannia Stadium. When Stoke had the ball, they were direct and made effective use of possession. When they didn’t, they dropped deep into two well organised banks of four, the midfield almost on top of the back line. Very tough to break down.

During the opening spell, 15 to 20 minutes say, Gabby & Ash were struggling to get into the game, both occupying fairly central positions and frankly a little loose with their first touch when they did see the ball.

However, during the final 15 to 20 minutes of the first half, Villa enjoyed a golden spell when Gabby started exploring the width of the pitch and stretched the Stoke defence. Villa really should have made hay while the sun was shining so brightly and Gabby’s main contributions to the game deserved two goals, instead of one.

The chart above shows how Gabby picked up the ball from NRC on the right in the 35th minute and delivered a quite exceptional left footed cross to Stewart Downing, who had pulled away from the last man and made no mistake with his header.

Just five minutes later, Gabby executed a near perfect mirror image, this time aiming for Ash’s superb run through the middle and putting the ball right on his forehead. Ash isn’t known for using his head of course, but the delivery was so good he’ll be kicking himself for not putting it away.

That’s the positives out the way, that five minute spell was Gabby’s major contribution to the game. He was on the pitch for another 72 minutes, he didn’t have a single shot on goal and completed a further 10 passes.

Aerial Battle

Some people will be extremely pleased that we didn’t employ a traditional target man and while I’ll share the pleasure of not indulging in the route one philosophy, I’ll also point out that we never really did to the level our critics would claim. Ultimately, when facing Stoke’s defensive shape, it’s inevitable that ball will get above the deck at some point and without a focal point and/or strong aerial presence, second phase ball was difficult to come by.

This is reflected in the tackle success rate of 43% in the Statshack table below. The tackle metric is actually made up of “duals” both in the air and on the ground, and “take-ons”. The aerial dual statistics are extremely revealing, Villa won just 13 out of 43 such battles, which is 30%, but crucially only 3 of those 13 were in the opposition half and none in the final third of the pitch.

I don’t particularly want to single Gabby out, but I’ve ringed the 10 aerial duals he was involved in below to show you where I think we missed Carew. The blue, on the left, are aerial duals won and the red, on the right, are aerial duals lost.

Gabby won one, on the edge of the centre circle, inside Stoke’s half, and lost nine, eight of which were in the opponent’s half, two in the box. I wouldn’t expect him to win everything, but without getting that second phase possession, we were effectively also failing to get Ash into the game, playing, as he was, as an auxiliary forward.

Pullis Makes The Changes

Tony Pullis watched at least most of the first half from the stands and made several phone calls to the bench. He reportedly “took the paint off the walls” of the dressing room at half time and was not unclear about what he wanted. He instructed his team to push up more, not to sit so deep, which seems simple and obvious, but they did exactly that and got themselves into the game.

Passing maps can frequently reveal the fortunes of a game and below you can see Stoke’s passing during the first 45 minutes, on the left, and the second 45 minutes, on the right. Stoke completed 68 passes during the first period and 96 in the second half, but the graphic shows how much busier they were in our third of the pitch.

Pullis’ instructions began to pay off and Stoke were getting a foothold in the game by the time he brought on some fresh legs just after the hour mark. Ricardo Fuller came on for Jonathan Walters, who had played much deeper through much of the game, exploring the width, and played in a much more advanced, central position. Jermaine Pennant followed Fuller five minutes later in place of Marc Wilson, who was struggling to make much impact in the centre, and we know what happened on their right side 15 minutes or so later.

With the luxury of hindsight, KMac waited too long to respond and made the wrong switch by bringing Heskey on in place of Gabby for the final few minutes. We’d played our Albrighton card to its full effect and the youngster was overdue a rest as he struggled to provide much protection for his full backs, specifically Warnock.

If it were me, I’d have wanted to bring Ireland on for Albrighton, pushed Ash to the right and asked Petrov and Reo-Coker just to sit in front of the back line, keeping it organised and simple. We might assume that Ireland wasn’t fit enough to play, so I’d have been sorely tempted to give Hogg a shot for the final 15 minutes or so playing in a central three.

What we seemed to lack is any real sense of cohesion and understanding of what the game plan was in the final thoes of the match. In the end, Luke Young’s long ball into the box in search of Emile Heskey, with Ashley Young tagging along, hopeful of picking up a knock back, ended harmlessly in Sorensen’s grasp. He sent the ball back down the pitch and Stan headed it to Stoke’s right side of the pitch where there was nothing but space.

Except Pennant was able to collect it and a quick couple of passes later he had the ball back and Stan was forced to come over to make the challenge that became the free kick that lead to the winning goal.

In the end it came down to a sequence of fortunate events. Pennant took the spill looking for the foul and got given it. Wrongly. The ball was sent in and after failing to clear our lines, an off target shot was redirected in by Robert Huth, just back on his feet after falling during a challenge with Reo-Coker.

We can bemoan our misfortune, but we had 45 minutes in the second half to re-establish control of the game and we failed. Ultimately, you make your own luck, or lack thereof. It also helps in places like Stoke to have someone capable of forcing themselves on the game, physically if necessary, and we could really have done with John Carew, even if only for 30 minutes.

2	Stoke City	September 13th 2010	Aston Villa	1
	43%	Possession %	57%
	21	Shots	11
	9	On Target	5
	8	Corners	7
	2	Offsides	1
80′ Jones, 90′ Huth		Scorers	35′ Downing
Collins		Booked	Warnock, Petrov
		Sent Off
	158	Good Passes	262
	38%	CPS %	62%
	64	Bad Passes	66
	71%	Completion %	80%
	23	Interceptions	11
	48	Tackles Won	34
	22	Tackles Lost	45
	69%	Success %	43%
	2	Blocks	5
	14	Free Kicks	14
Starting XI: 1. Friedel 2. Young 3. Warnock 29. Collins 5. Dunne 19. Petrov 20. Reo-Coker 14. Albrighton 6. Downing 7. Young 11. Agbonlahor Subs: 18. Heskey 24. Cuellar 22. Guzan 23. Beye 9. Ireland 47. Clark 50. Hogg
Average Position Maps

You can find Statshacks from other games here.

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