Newcastle tried to make some late pushes but ultimately didn’t have enough and lost at home to Aston Villa.
The Villans didn’t have a lot of trouble creating dangerous opportunities going forward while also preventing the Magpies from doing the same on the other end.
As far as 1-0 wins go, this wasn’t a very difficult one. Things did get nervy a few times with Tyrone Mings constantly pushing up the field and not being back when Newcastle eventually counter attacked.
Yoanne Wissa had a few half-decent chances but nothing too concrete. So much so that all three big chances of the game went to Aston Villa. In the end, a Yohan Manzambi 36th-minute header was enough to hand the visitors three points.
How did Aston Villa break the deadlock against Newcastle?
Buendia’s manipulation masterclass
Matthias Jaissle is big on intensity, pressing and verticality. But for the second one you wouldn’t imagine so watching them at St. James’ Park this afternoon.
They pressed high up the pitch from the start in a 4-1-3-2 out-of-possession formation. Nico Gonzalez stayed deeper while Joelinton took a step forward to the number 10 spot and Joe Willock joined Yoanne Wissa up front. The Magpies often had numbers near Aston Villa’s penalty area and even recorded 7.9 PPDA., which is considered fairly low.
But Jaissle wanted to leave a spare man at the back, meaning Newcastle never matched the number of players Aston Villa had to start their build-ups.
That in itself is by no means a problem. But they went all in every single time with a block of players in numerical disadvantage up front and another group at the back. In the end, leaving a spare man did not have the desired effect of protecting the defence, cause it was left exposed by the attacking players’ press.
And Villa had an absolute field day playing through that press. They found the free man every single time, whether it was going from left to right or vice-verse or even straight down the middle.
Unai Emery seems to have instructed them to look for quick transitions down the right, always looking for Manzambi connecting with Alysson. The duo showed great chemistry and took care of business down that flank before looking to set up Nicolas Jackson.
The Villans’ percentage splits of attacking dsitribution until Manzambi scored was at 46% on the right flank, 36% in the central corridor and 18% down the left. Buendia was a ‘false left-midfielder’ who operated centrally while Aaron Wan-Bissaka provided the width, but often uninvolved in attacking sequences in the first 35 minutes.
And the Argentine was the key in two different moments during the build-up to Manzambi’s goal. He dropped deep to become the free man when Newcastle when into their man-oriented press. While Villa passed from right to left, Matias Fernandez-Pardo failed to switch onto Wan-Bissaka as Wissa went to Mings.
This left Lewis Miley in doubt as to chase Buendia or Wan-Bissaka down the left wing, and ultimately chose the latter. As a result, Buendia received in the middle of the park but played a simple pass back to open things up and enable them to go back to the right-hand side.
Alysson then carried the ball forward and left it to Joao Gomes who set Manzambi’s header with a beautiful cross. However, Buendia had a key participation in that too.
Villa’s No.10 was just outside the box when Gomes received the pass. And at that moment, Sven Botman was keeping track of Manzambi inside the penalty area. Buendia then crashed the box and attracted the Dutchman’s attention. Manzambi was then left unmarked as Miley failed to track back in time.
He touched the ball just once during the whole build-up but was perhaps the most important factor in that goal other than Manzambi, who actually scored it.
Just a few minutes later, he dragged his man out of position once again to receive and play Wan-Bissaka down the left flank. This time Buendia himself got the ball back to shoot, but ended up hitting the post in what would have been a thoroughly deserved goal to crown his quiet but crucial work off the ball.
Easy but late fix for Newcastle
Good news for Newcastle is that all those pressing problems had a simple solution. Bad news is that Jaissle only went for it after conceding the goal.
The German went away from the 4-1-3-2 out-of-possession formation and maintained the 4-4-2 they used most of the time when settled at the back.
Gonzalez joined his teammates to press high up the pitch rather than sitting back. And there was no spare man anymore, meaning they created 11 different 1v1 mini battles all throughout the pitch.
As risky as it sounds – and certainly can be -, it’s actually the strategy that worked the most. In the very first possession he tried it, around the 43rd minute, goalkeeper Zion Suzuki had no options but to launch the ball forward and hope for the best. Wasn’t even a directed long pass, but more of a hoof.
Jaissle kept this strategy until the end of the game and, unsurprisingly, Villa had no more sequences breaking through Newcastle’s press. They did get a few fast breaks and more dangerous opportunities, but not the same way they did in the first half.
For perspective, Suzuki attempted 24 long passes in the game, with a whopping 20 of them coming from the 43rd minute onwards. Splitting by half, eight in the first and 16 in the second.
This didn’t exactly solve Newcastle’s defensive issues, as they could have conceded a few times in the second half. There was one dangerous counter-attack in which both Jackson and Ross Barkley took shots, and the latter forced a good save from Lukas Hornicek.
Ibrahim Mbaye also had two decent goalscoring opportunities, but placed one over the bar and the other, which would have been an incredibly solo goal, wide.
Overall, Aston Villa looked like a much superior side than Newcastle. And they seem to be going in opposite directions as well, with the Villans apparently recovering from a slow start and the Magpies falling into a losing spiral after great results earlier on.