Aston Villa vs. PSG Tactical Analysis
How Aston Villa almost pulled off the impossible.
I was a skeptic for sure. I was asking how can Aston Villa actually regain control from PSG? How are would they be effective having to press for a majority of the match despite being the worst team in the Premier League at generating danger zone losses?
Well, they answered a lot of those questions and almost pulled off the improbable.
So how did they do it? Let’s take a look.
First Half
Right off the bat PSG continued to press Villa high in a man to man fashion even though they were holding a two goal advantage.
This image says quite a bit about what PSG were trying to do. Look at the amount of space from the centerbacks to the midfielders.
Because PSG is so fluid with their rotations, anyone can drop deep, which means if Aston Villa decides to mark man to man, they are going to get pulled out of position to create space for PSG to make runs into.
Aston Villa was trying to close off the middle of the pitch early on, but by doing that they are left 1 v 1 out wide and PSG made them pay.
Villa was playing their usual high line, which is very dangerous against the pace that PSG has. Here Dembele wasn’t able to get on the end of it, but he’s way faster than Torres, which forced Martinez to spill the cross right to Hakimi for the first goal.
Aston Villa started out in zonal princples in their 4-4-2, but once they went down a goal, they had start going man to man.
Vitinha will often drop into the back line to help in build up because he’s PSG’s most press resistant player. He was allowed early to drop in without any resistance, which gave PSG a numerical advantage in the first phase of build up.
Aston Villa’s midfielders started following Vitinha, Neves, and Ruiz anytime they dropped deep, as you can see from the image below.
The one thing also to notice from this image is Dembele dropping deep, which is really asking a lot questions of Konsa. If he jumps, that leaves acres of space for Barcola 1 v 1 against Matty Cash, but here he stays back and allows PSG to have an overload.
The second goal comes as a result of Villa’s defenders starting to jump on PSG’s forwards that were dropping deep.
Konsa gets dragged deep by Kvaratskhelia, which frees up a ton of space where Vitinha is able to release Hakimi.
Next thing you know, PSG has a 4 v 2 break and Mendes puts it in the back of the net.
Aston Villa were able to pull one back with Tielemans, but PSG were still in control of the match at this point.
One thing that was also very clear in the first half is that Villa is not a team that is built to press intensely for a majority of the match. Basically everytime the ball went backwards it triggered Villa into pressing man to man, but they weren’t doing it with much intensity in the first half.
Here PSG are able to easily play through it and look at the space Vitinha has centrally to carry the ball.
Second Half
One change that Unai Emery made was to start pushing his fullbacks higher up the pitch and play switch balls to them. They largely stayed back in the first half because they were afraid of getting hit on the counter by PSG’s wingers, but trailing by three goals on aggregate, it’s hail mary time.
It was good change because PSG’s fullbacks were often tucked inside on McGinn & Rogers, which allowed Cash and Digne this kind of space for switch balls.
Villa were also asking questions of PSG’s backline. One of their best chances came as a result of getting a midfield overload by dropping both McGinn and Rogers.
Rogers was able to receive the ball it in behind and it eventually fell to Marcus Rashford for a shot with an xG rating of 0.32.
Aston Villa’s second goal comes as a result of pushing their fullbacks higher up the pitch.
Look at this image, McGinn drops deep and Hakimi initially follows him, but then notices Digne pushing up so he switches to go cover him, which allows McGinn to receive the ball in space.
Nobody picks up the ball from PSG and McGinn is allowed a free shot from outside of the box and puts it in the back of the net.
Aston Villa scored quickly again by a beautiful individual dribbling effort by Rashford to set up Konsa and now it's game on.
One thing that was pretty clear throughout the second half is for all of their talent, PSG is terrible box defending team.
This is off a corner. Tielemans is able to take a free swing at it with nobody even close to him.
Aston Villa had another huge chance taking advantage of PSG man marking. Vintinha was marking Asensio who simply beat him in behind and was 1 v 1 against Donnarumma.
Konsa had a great chance off a set piece that he missed, but after that you have to give PSG credit.
They took a bunch of blows to the body, but never went down. For the final 20 minutes they regained control of the match and kept it in Aston Villa’s end of the pitch.
After the Konsa missed header here were the remaining chances for the match.
image via fbref.com
Conclusion
What looked like a routine PSG victory almost turned into one of their many Champions League nightmares.
Aston Villa really exposed PSG’s defensive man marking structure. In the second half they kept targeting Asensio because he was going to more than likely win his matchup with Vitinha.
This is an important thing to remember because PSG is more than likely going to face Arsenal, who are one of the most physically imposing teams in the world and can consistently win these types of matchups.
In the end, you have to give PSG credit for seeing out the tie, but Luis Enrique’s side showed some vulnerabilities in Birmingham Tuesday night that could play a major role if they play Arsenal in the semifinals.