The clever Aston Villa tactic that completely dismantled Serie A giants Roma
Aston Villa defeated AS Roma in their second Bescot Stadium pre-season friendly and their 3-0 lead at half time rewarded a tactical triumph.
Villa welcomed the Giallorossi to the home of Walsall and produced the best 45 minutes of pre-season so far. Donyell Malen‘s goal after the break was the icing on the cake but the baking was all done in the first half.
Manager Unai Emery opted for a starting eleven packed with players who will be in contention for Villa’s first Premier League game of the season against Newcastle United in nine days’ time and they were far too good for Roma.
Two goals in three early minutes put Villa in the driving seat in the shadow of the M6.
Emi Buendía fired a magnificent free kick into the top corner after Ollie Watkins had been pulled down on the edge of the box. Jacob Ramsey slotted the second home having been sent clear by a defence-splitting through ball from Youri Tielemans.
Buendía’s pinpoint cross teed up yet another Watkins header to make it 3-0 and Villa were cruising. Or, rather, they could have cruised but they didn’t. It was the sharpest performance of the summer.
Villa versus the press
Roma appointed Gian Piero Gasperini as their new head coach over the summer after years of excellent work in charge of Atalanta.
Gasperini has indicated his intent to have his new team take the game to their opponents and, on Wednesday, that manifested in an extremely aggressive press in the first half. Villa were put under pressure all the way back to goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez but it ultimately worked in their favour.
Villa dismantled the press like Alan Partridge in a cheap hotel room but it wasn’t a single approach that did the job.
Emery’s team spent the first half with Roma players in their faces and completely outfoxed them by being able to beat the press in three different ways: going around it, going through it, and going over it.
These are all attributes we’ve seen from Emery’s Villa before.
Playing off Martínez through the centre-backs and then full-backs is par for the course. Picking out a pass into feet in midfield is always an option for a team with Boubacar Kamara and Tielemans in there. Firing a long ball into Watkins isn’t the fashionable option but Villa did it to good effect.
But it was the ability to do all three, to make all three work in the same game, and to know which hammer to pull out of the toolbox and when, that left Roma helpless.’
Injury scare for Emery
The second half was a very different affair. Other than Malen’s goal and another all-round solid display from the Dutch winger playing at centre-forward, the only incident of note came after just a couple of minutes.
Morgan Rogers was forced off with an injury after coming on at the break. He left the field under his own steam but it was a scare Villa could do without and we await further news ahead of the weekend’s friendly double-header against Marseille and Villarreal.
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