Villa in America: So Far So Meh

The difficulties of rebuilding on the fly have been on display in Villa’s summer trip to America with the side losing two in a row and shipping six. Should we be worried?

First off, most everyone will say it’s meaningless and that the games are just to get minutes in the legs. While both are somewhat true, you actually do want to play ‘well’ in context. And Villa haven’t really so far in America. Emery has emphasized that the games are are about drilling the system, and what we’ve seen are combinations of a number of players not very familiar with each other, never mind how they’re supposed to operate in relation to each other.

Standard stuff, given the turnover, even if it hasn’t been fun to watch. There’ve been moments of fluidity and some good balls, but the timing and end product haven’t been there. Leipzig looked miles ahead of Villa in terms of cohesion and pressure. And pressure is what really exposes a lack of familiarity. Playing out involves a lot of repetition, patterns, and decisions. If you’re just a little off, it can look pretty bad. The FBs have to know the CB’s preferences and strengths and vice versa. The midfielders naturally, it’s the same thing: when do they come, when do they drag players away, who is it that comes and why. And the scenarios differ depending on the play before, meaning who’s available and where are they? If I rush in to challenge, have I just left a big gap?

So that’s a lot of what we’re seeing. Naturally that breeds some hesitancy and confusion. Makes it harder to connect and keep the ball. Makes for turnovers that set up moves. Again, all standard stuff, but this is where the bulk of the emphasis lies in analysis and coaching. In short, doesn’t say a whole lot about the players themselves at the moment. With a number of players just making their returns and some still out, we’ve seen some interesting combinations.

Probably the biggest concern I’m seeing is about the defending. First we have CBs and the depth there, then the usual FB debates, and finally who’s playing in front of them. We aren’t deep at CB, currently, and it shows. Konsa and Torres reuniting will help. Remains to be seen how the 6-8 combo will settle until Kamara’s return. Emery looked at Onana and Barkley together there Wednesday night, and while Barkley had a hard time getting free and involved, Onana was a beneficiary and looked good. He’ll obviously be important. I’ve seen good signs from Nedeljkovic, while I haven’t seen enough from Maatsen to really say much. Of all the new faces, I’d say Iling-Jr seems to be struggling the most. But he’s only 20.

And of course Carlos going and getting himself sent off totally undermined the second half of the Leipzig outing. Villa ended up drilling being a man down and not much else. The goals were poor, Barkley may well have been fouled. Teams are going to keep trying to launch it over and through the high line. With no VAR, and precious few replays, it can be hard to tell exactly what’s happened.

The other big concern, of course, is the perennial “what would we do without Ollie?”

The other thing I’m seeing, and maybe I’m just imagining it, is that I think the players want to get through the summer unscathed. With Buendia and Ramsey finally getting back out there, Mings about to resume full training, and Kamara still out for a while, I’m guessing the grind ahead is in more than one mind as is the prospect of injury and not overdoing things.

Anyway, no big insights…everyone’s seeing pretty much the same things. I’m assuming we’ll see a starting XI coalesce as we progress through Club America, Bilbao, and Dortmund, and initially it might not look that different than what we’d have seen at the end of last season (minus Luiz). Right now, I’m betting Onana is in there, but I’m sure we’ll still see match-to-match variations and a fair amount of rotation.

Over to you.