Welcome to the Tuesday Tactics.

Every Tuesday during the season I’ll put together a detailed tactical analysis of a game from the previous weekend. Sometimes this game will be one that you will have watched in full or maybe just highlights.

For me, the choice of this game will come before it actually happens. Putting together a recap of a match in this manner requires a good three hours to watch the match properly. Basically, what this means is that not every game chosen will be a treat but there will always be something interesting we can look at tactically no matter what the scoreline is.

This week’s featured game was chosen due to both teams employing new manager’s heading into the match, Aston Villa vs West Ham United.

Pre-Match

Caretaker boss Kevin MacDonald had some big decisions to make when it came to his team selection, with injuries and the ongoing James Milner saga causing him more than a few sleepless nights heading in.

With regular starters James Collins, Carlos Cuellar and Gabby Agbonlahor all out injured, MacDonald chose to bring in Luke Young at right back and picked a pair of 20-year-olds to fill the other gaps in Ciaran Clark and Marc Albrighton, players he knew very well from his time as reserve manager at the club.

Young and Clark were simple straight swaps for Collins and Cuellar but the selection of Albrighton was the pick of the bunch and led to a big change in tactics from the previous regime under Martin O’Neill.

This meant, before a ball was even kicked, a more free role for Ashley Young who would now be playing off the striker, John Carew. Here is how Villa lined up.

For Avram Grant this match was his debut game as West Ham manager and having lost both his opening matches in charge of Chelsea and Portsmouth in this league he didn’t want to score a hat-trick of losses. Grant’s West Ham arrived at Villa Park to play a team supposedly in turmoil and expected big things. He surprised some by handing new signing Winston Reid a full debut and actually had a fit and healthy left side with Herita Ilunga and Luis Boa Morte back together in the side for the first time in over a year.

Grant undoubtedly felt confident about sending this team out with the hope that the three man midfield can disrupt the pressure from the home side while his natural wingers can help defensively, particularly on the right side where Julian Faubert is often used as a right back. It turned out to be a recipe for disaster.

1st half

If Villa players had been shell-shocked by the resignation of O’Neill just days earlier then they certainly didn’t show it and started the match with an incredibly high tempo. The Hammers didn’t know what had hit them. Immediately, Villa looked to play the match in their opponents half and used width as a means to terrorize the West Ham defence.

Albrighton, Ashley Young and Stewart Downing all put in decent crosses to the box inside the first five minutes and the worrying signs for the visitors were clear for everyone to see. Far too often they struggled in the air and Upson, Reid and goalkeeper Robert Green all mistimed jumps early on.

The Villa barrage continued and suckered the West Ham defence deeper and deeper. Young defender James Tomkins looked nervous and edgy from the start and his awful start continued on ten minutes when his terrible backpass gifted John Carew a golden opportunity that he should have done better with.

Big John

Villa’s system clearly worked well but having just Carew up top on his own does have its setbacks and could lead to problems against better clubs. The Tomkins error proved to be an excellent example of what happens when you have a target man up front on his own who isn’t great at carving out goalscoring opportunities for himself. In matches where chances are limited this may prove to be a failing for Villa if they employ this style often. Obviously, when Agbonlahor is fit this may be different but, for me, he should no longer be an automatic starting choice for Villa.

Midfield Battle

With West Ham adopting a three man central midfield to take hold of the game, Villa showed that you only need two and took advantage of the extra man in the final third (A Young) that West Ham didn’t have. Stiliyan Petrov and Milner worked in harmony throughout the first half and, as the Hammers threesome got deeper, they were given much more space:

Above is the way the teams were positioned on two key occasions early in the first half. Both from giveaways by West Ham when they were camped deep in their own half. The first one came from a long clearance that Petrov picked up and immediately gave the pass back to Clark (white line). Clark, a left-footed player who already looks an exceptional technical defender, then sprinted into space vacated by West Ham.

A similar set of events took place soon after when, on 15 minutes, Boa Morte had the ball in his own third, looked up and had very little choices in terms of outlets. This caused a needless giveaway straight to Clark who this time sprinted 25 yards uncontested before passing to Ashley Young. Reid didn’t get tight enough and Young swung in an excellent cross that Green decided to punch, rather than catch. Albrighton crossed the ball back in immediately and Downing was on hand to score just his second ever Premier League goal for Villa, all from the Clark run into the space:

It was a goal that had been coming and Villa refused to take their foot of the pedal. It was now a pulsating affair and  in the 30th minute Villa took their 10th cornerwhile West Ham had yet to have one or even a shot on target.

Trevor Francis, colour commentator, rightly suggested: "One, nil at this stage is not a true indication of this match."

Surprisingly enough, despite the dominance, West Ham did very little differently from a tactical point of view to change it up. They attempted to push Kovac forward a little more and he does in fact have an excellent left foot in terms of distribution but the problem was whenever he looked for Boa Morte or Cole the start of their attack began so deep in their own half that it wasn’t cau
sing Brad Friedel, in the Villa goal, any problems.

The only real scoring chance they had early came when Carlton Cole received the ball just over the halfway line and quickly touched the ball around Richard Dunne, with his back to him, spinning past the defender and getting away from the Irishman, only to see his shot go across Friedel and wide. Villa, playing a high back line at this stage due to the dominance, quickly had Dunne and Clark sit a little deeper following this incident.

Width Overlap

The second goal was coming and it happened five minutes before half-time. Tireless work by the exceptional Albrighton down the right, resulted in more pressure on the West Ham defence and the theme of the half , crosses into danger areas led to Petrov heading home past Green. It was an unfortunate scenario for West Ham who had once again been exposed down the flanks as the wingers were backed up by a team-mate (this time Ashley Young helped Albrighton) and Young sent in a delicious cross where a charging Petrov lost his marker, Faubert, to nod in a rare goal.

2nd half

At the half-time whistle, West Ham were effectively dead and burried in the match and desperately needed a change of shape and personnel and their manager duly obliged with both as Kovac and Boa Morte were removed for debutants Frederic Piquionne and Pablo Barrera. The Barrera for Boa Morte didn’t change too much to the formation but Barrera’s ability to get forward and come off his wing centrally more than Boa Morte meant West Ham could keep the ball better than in the first half. Piquionne for Kovac was a bigger impact and actually made the visitors the better team for the opening 15 minutes of the second half.

Having Piquionne in the side instead of Kovac gave West Ham an outlet as he held the ball up well and moved into space regularly when he didn’t have the ball. This allowed Parker and Noble to get forward more and stopped the Villa overlaps wide as the wingers were required to track back more and help out the defenders as the visitors committed more men forward. Tomkins and Faubert both had great chances to half the defecit and turn the game back into a contest but their finishing was average and Villa maintained their two goal advantage.

During West Ham’s best spell of the match, Villa switched wingers putting Downing on the right side and Albrighton on the left and, like most things MacDonald did on this day, it proved to be a touch of genius as Albrighton caused West Ham fits, cutting inside against the poor combination of Reid and Tomkins. The young winger was now full of confidence and had no problems regularly beating the defenders one-on-one. The only thing that was in question was whether he would go inside or outside to the byline.

In the 65th minute, Albrighton sparkled again, this time deciding to cut inside on Tomkins before passing to Milner who smashed home with his left foot in front of the faithful Holte End who had cheered him all day. It was a fitting moment and although Milner grabbed the attention nationally the work by Albrighton didn’t get lost on the locals inside Villa Park.

The goal ended any chance West Ham had of looking for a point and nothing of note, tactically, took place afterwards except for the removal of Tomkins, who had a nightmare, for Alessandro Diamanti who slotted in on the wing moving Faubert back to right back and Reid inside to play centre back.

Conclusion

Villa’s tactics were spot on and were a big factor in the reason for the one-sided victory. For me, it was refreshing to see Villa play without two natural strikers and having Ashley Young play behind the forward is something I would hope to see them adopt going forward. Young’s energy and ability to find space without the ball causes defenders problems and he remains one of the most underrated crosses of the ball in the league. Also having Young play alongside two natural wingers gives Villa a lot of width and sees them going into games doing what they do best. It’ll be interesting to see what they do with Agbonlahor as he doesn’t hold the ball up as well as Carew but is obviously a more clinical finisher. Perhaps, they should look to find a forward in the transfer market who can do both? That might be a fantasy for Villa fans, though.

For West Ham and Avram Grant it was a very bad day at the office. The search for width with their starting lineup backfired and they defended poorly. Upson looked shaky and Tomkins, a young player with a promising future, played the worst game I’ve seen from him in a West Ham shirt. Carew and Young’s excellent movement caused them fits as their full backs did little to help them, being occupied with the wingers. All four defenders must be better on crosses this season and Green needs to be more commanding and stop punching balls clear when they can be caught. I don’t expect to see Reid at right back again although it will be interesting to see if Grant goes back to Faubert who he clearly saw as a right winger before Saturday.

Player Ratings

Aston Villa – Friedel 7, L Young 7, Dunne 7, Clark 8, Warnock 7, Albrighton 9 (Bannan 89), Petrov 8, Milner 8 (Reo-Coker 85) Downing 8, A Young 9 (Wiemann 86), Carew 7.

West Ham – Green 5, Reid 5, Tomkins 4 (Diamanti 72), Upson 5, Ilunga 5, Faubert 5, Kovac 6 (Piquionne 46, 7) Noble 6, Parker 6, Boa Morte 4 (Barrera 46, 6), Cole 6.

Man of the match – Marc Albrighton.

Kristian Jack