Villa's style of play

[eastie]

Paul Lambert has angrily rejected accusations that his Aston Villa team are long-ball merchants – and vowed to improve their home form.

Andre Villas-Boas claimed the claret and blues adopted route-one tactics during Tottenham’s Capital One Cup victory at Villa Park on Tuesday.

Villas-Boas’ comments follow a similar suggestion from Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho after Villa’s Premier League defeat at Stamford Bridge last month.

Football statisticians classify ‘long balls’ as launches upfield, not to a specific player.

According to the Opta figures, Villa are the third-worst offenders in the Premier League this season, having hit 153 long balls, with only West Ham (169) and Crystal Palace (166) producing more.

  Aston Villa v Man City: Live match report with Mat Kendrick

Of Villa’s total passes, 15.36 per cent are long, again ranking them third, this time behind West Ham (15.93 per cent) and Cardiff (15.61 per cent).

Lambert’s team have also made the most headed flick-ons – 64 – in the top flight, ahead of West Ham (61) and Newcastle (58).

But Lambert has hit back at the criticism, insisting it is “detrimental” to brand his team ‘hit and hope’ when they pride themselves on playing passing football.

“I don’t get that really,” said Lambert, whose team host title-chasing Manchester City tomorrow afternoon.

“If you go and look at your stats at how many long balls Chelsea played against us, I’m pretty sure we weren’t ahead of them. And Spurs.

Are Aston Villa a long ball team?

 
“We don’t have the players to play long balls. We might play a long pass. We don’t just hit it up front and hope for the best. I think that’s detrimental actually, to say things like that. I don’t agree with that.

“Even if Christian Benteke plays we don’t play long. You’re not telling me we’re a big side other than Christian or Nathan Baker?

“I don’t think it’s right to say that. We don’t play that way at all. I think they’re wrong in saying that.”

At the start of last season, the claret and blue faithful hailed Lambert’s preference for possession football with chants of “We’re Aston Villa, we’re passing the ball.”

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Aston Villa v Manchester City
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And he confirmed his players are encouraged to try to play attractively by taking as few touches as possible at a high tempo and working hard to regain possession.

“We go and try and pass it,” said Lambert. “We try and play football the right way, even in training.

“We certainly don’t kick the ball long, that’s for sure. You can ask anybody here, we don’t play long-ball football, we just don’t have players to do that.

‘‘Gabby Agbonlahor and Andi Weimann, for instance, Ashley Westwood, Fabian Delph, Karim El Ahmadi – they’re footballers.”

Villa welcome third-placed City, having lost nine of their past 13 Premier League games at Villa Park, including this season’s home fixtures against Liverpool and Newcastle.

“You need to win your home games,” added Lambert. “I think you should have a good solid base at home. We’ve got to improve that.

“It seems like we’re doing it the other way around, winning away from home and finding it hard at home. I don’t know how that is.

“We don’t set our stall out any different. We go and try and win every game that we play in.

The last sentence is the problem - we don't set our stall out any different - we need to change our system of play at home ,  its fine away but needs changing at home.

[Clampy]

I think he means we don't go out and try and take a point from games, we try to win everyone.

[saunders_heroes]

I'm not bothered what style of football we play as long as we don't play like Wimbledon of old. Long ball football has been demonised by the likes of Sam Allardyce who genuinely just hoofs the ball up the pitch hoping it will land on someone's head, where as we mix it up a bit. I like a team with wingers where you get the ball out wide ASAP and whip in crosses, but even that isn't good enough for the purists these days who think if you don't try and emulate Barcelona then you must hate the game of football.

[PaulWinch again]

I'm a bit concerned he says, 'I don't know how that is.' I can tell him exactly how that is, it's because we don't retain possession and build pressure at home. Although I completely agree about his long ball comments.

[Mister E]

Was that Lambert "angrily" rejecting accusations?!

The debate has been somewhat done to death and doesn't take us forward any.
The key issue is getting more points from those away games that seem to slip away from us and doing a whole lot better at home.
Like our set-piece conundrum of last season / season before last, Lambert's coaching team have to find some answers.

[Mister E]

I'm not bothered what style of football we play as long as we don't play like Wimbledon of old. Long ball football has been demonised by the likes of Sam Allardyce who genuinely just hoofs the ball up the pitch hoping it will land on someone's head, where as we mix it up a bit. I like a team with wingers where you get the ball out wide ASAP and whip in crosses, but even that isn't good enough for the purists these days who think if you don't try and emulate Barcelona then you must hate the game of football.

Agreed - it's like Wenger who has regulalrly bemoaned the fact that teams like Stoke don't play the 'right' kind of football - i.e. one that will let the Arsenal style prevail. Football has no one designated approach and whether it's 'direct', winger-orientated or tiki-taka (the 'new' terminology for Barca's short pass-and-move style) should not really be the point.
Teams that do what they do well - and perhaps mix up their footballing style - will probably do rather well.

[MarkM]

I'm not bothered what style of football we play as long as we don't play like Wimbledon of old. Long ball football has been demonised by the likes of Sam Allardyce who genuinely just hoofs the ball up the pitch hoping it will land on someone's head, where as we mix it up a bit. I like a team with wingers where you get the ball out wide ASAP and whip in crosses, but even that isn't good enough for the purists these days who think if you don't try and emulate Barcelona then you must hate the game of football.

Teams that do what they do well

I'm not 100% sure what it is that we do do well

[supertom]

I hope he can actually acknowledge that our passing is largely poor. Sometimes I worry just how much Lambert thinks we need to improve in certain areas. We've got a hell of a lot of work to do to move forward. If there's one thing that Lambo has let himself down with, it's identifying and rectifying problems in good time. Be it within a game (getting murdered by Ben Arfa), or over the course of a many games (inability to keep the ball efficiently. Too narrow. One way of playing effectively).

If he doesn't start rectifying problems then we're gonna go nowhere, and he's going to get fired. Less talk more action.

As for the long ball thing. Well stats back it up. Watching games does too. He says we don't hit and hope, but it's exactly what we do start doing when we're chasing a game. Particularly at Villa park. This is why our possession of the football must improve. That will require a switch of system at home as well as better footballers to come in during January.

[nick harper]

I'm not bothered what style of football we play as long as we don't play like Wimbledon of old. Long ball football has been demonised by the likes of Sam Allardyce who genuinely just hoofs the ball up the pitch hoping it will land on someone's head, where as we mix it up a bit. I like a team with wingers where you get the ball out wide ASAP and whip in crosses, but even that isn't good enough for the purists these days who think if you don't try and emulate Barcelona then you must hate the game of football.

Agreed - it's like Wenger who has regulalrly bemoaned the fact that teams like Stoke don't play the 'right' kind of football - i.e. one that will let the Arsenal style prevail. Football has no one designated approach and whether it's 'direct', winger-orientated or tiki-taka (the 'new' terminology for Barca's short pass-and-move style) should not really be the point.
Teams that do what they do well - and perhaps mix up their footballing style - will probably do rather well.

I don't disagree with this. However you have to acknowledge that if you play a more 'direct' style, you will normally have less of the ball - as direct means getting the ball forward quickly- and at times that will be via a longer ball.

I have no issue with Lambert playing to his team's strength doing that. My issue is that when we don't have the ball, it's too easy for the opposition to play their game, especially at home. We need to up the effort in closing down and breaking up play, otherwise we will continue to lose home games in particular. Away from home it's less of an issue as we sit and break on teams.

In that sense, he must see that he has to change the style of play at home.

[Monty]

We do play long passes rather than long balls in the sense that they're not aimless, but they are unnecessary risky and we need to learn to keep the ball better. And Guzan should hoof it less.

[dekko]

We do play long passes rather than long balls in the sense that they're not aimless, but they are unnecessary risky and we need to learn to keep the ball better. And Guzan should hoof it less.

Part of the problem with hoofing it is that while Benteke/Kozak will probably win most of the headers, there isnt enough movement from our other players to get on the end of flick ons and lay offs and whatnot

[paul_e]

We do play long passes rather than long balls in the sense that they're not aimless, but they are unnecessary risky and we need to learn to keep the ball better. And Guzan should hoof it less.

I'd like to see that stat with Guzan removed, like Monty I do find he has a tendency for long punts which doesn't help us build pressure.

In that sense, he must see that he has to change the style of play at home.

I don't quite agree, I think what we plan to do at home can be effective, I just don't think we're actually doing it very well right now.

[Mister E]

I think we're all violently agreeing here ... worryingly!

[eamonn]

Lambert does not, ever, criticise his players in public so it's hard to know his true feelings on the accusations of hoof-ball. There was a more revealing comment from him after a recent game where he said we don't quite have the nous yet to play a patient-passing game.

[FranzBiberkopf]

With their wonderful three-man attack, Aston Villa are one of the most entertaining sides in the league but while there is plenty to admire about the diligence of Gabriel Agbonlahor and Andreas Weimann, it is Christian Benteke whose goals grab the headlines. He has scored four of their goals this season, so the news that he will be out with a hip injury for six weeks comes as a crushing blow, putting pressure not just on Villa's other forwards but also a defence which is hardly renowned for its solidity. At least Benteke's replacement, Libor Kozak, scored the winner within minutes of coming on against Norwich last Saturday but the 6ft 4in Czech striker is less mobile than the Belgian and Villa's game is largely based around speed, especially on the break. Without his biggest goal threat, Paul Lambert may have to curb his attacking instincts and opt for a more cautious approach against City, whose defeat at Cardiff proved that they can toil against deep defences. Their best hope may be that City have one eye on the visit of Bayern Munich in the Champions League next Wednesday, though.

For today's Guardian.

Why the discrepency between how some on here see us, and the press sees us?