Unai Emery’s post-match press conferences have captured headlines lately.
It is a swift and unforeseen transformation, pivoting from a manager who had always been minded to keep his powder dry to one now increasingly exasperated. Until this week, his ire was chiefly aimed towards the officials and why, in his mind, Aston Villa had been “unluckier with the refereeing this season.”
Defeat in Monaco made Emery turn inwards. He rambled through the bowels of the St Louis II stadium, through the multiple rooms and beige doors to face the media. There were no customary pleasantries, just deep inhales of breath. His opening answer to a question from The Athletic which asked what contributed to Villa’s 1-0 defeat appeared to be an immediate and certain change of tack; through a few long initial pauses where he stared towards the back of the room, Emery’s response lasted three minutes and 32 seconds.
“We can maybe be here for two days explaining it,” he began.
Emery rattled through the reasons. He blamed himself for pairing Jhon Duran and Ollie Watkins together in the second half, pointed to his temple when asked why players did not follow the gameplan — inferring mindset — and insisted Villa missed the opportunity to finish in the Champions League top eight and bypass the next knockout stage.
“The last 25 minutes when we were playing with two strikers, we lost our positioning,” he said, matter of factly. “We weren’t threatening them like in the first 70 minutes.
“We lost. It was my mistake. I made a mistake when I decided to play with two strikers and we lost the positioning. Because until the moment, we were controlling the game.
“This is how I want to build a team. With the mentality I want. We are in this direction being very demanding with the players we have. And, of course, some are not following the plan we are doing and this is the objective I have now.”
Emery’s chagrin was understandable. The sophistication of Monaco during the day — with its yachts, supercars racing through a mountainous backdrop and plush casinos in the day — made way for nighttime stodgy entertainment.
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Emery called Villa’s set pieces “horrible” but it was three passes in open play that cut to the root cause.
There is always a balancing act to Villa’s middle-centric build-up, designed to create overloads in central areas through a system that incorporates two No 10s. Villa intend to work short, sharp passes in tight areas, knowing they, more often than not, have the numerical advantage. In turn, this enables them to progress the ball through midfield. In the Premier League this season, only Chelsea (32 per cent) generate more chances centrally than Villa (31 per cent).
As Emery later explained, Villa created “three or four good chances to score” against Monaco by working the ball through the lines. Equally, however, their defeat was characterised by three mistakes.
Alarmingly, each mistake was a repeat of passing blindly around corners and/or into danger. Monaco sparked their attacks through set pieces and transitions and waited to pounce on errors.
The first and ultimately fatal warning shot came in the eighth minute when Tyrone Mings attempted to play a cute, short pass into Youri Tielemans.
The ball is under hit and the wrong decision, with Monaco intercepting.
Ezri Konsa blocks the shot, with the ball ricocheting out for a corner.
The resulting cross is met emphatically by Thilo Kehrer who rises above Mings. Emiliano Martinez saves the initial effort, but Wilfried Singo follows up on the rebound to score.
“No excuses. I gave a poor ball away leading to the corner and didn’t defend the corner very well,” said Mings to TNT Sports.
Passing into the mouth of danger once and being bitten early did not scare Villa away from their desire to play the same way. When passes were crisp and accurate, they broke through Monaco lines, with Morgan Rogers, Ollie Watkins and Leon Bailey all having shooting opportunities.
“When we were with the ball we were playing with ball possession and trying to progress with passes and get organised, we were connecting with our two No 10s — Rogers and Emiliano Buendia,” said Emery.
Mings and Konsa were tasked with punching the ball into the No 10s feet and through Monaco’s midfield pair. Konsa, seven minutes after his centre-back partner’s mistake, plays a similar straight pass into danger.
Villa are caught on transition with full-backs stranded and Monaco exploiting the vacant space.
Left winger Eliesse Ben Seghir breaks beyond and finds the opposite wide player, Maghnes Akliouche. Martinez turns the effort around the post and this time, Monaco do not score from the subsequent corner.
Emery was withering about his performance and his “mistake” by introducing Duran in the 57th minute and rocking Villa’s structure. He railed against the notion that fatigue may have been a factor in the loss, owing to the short turnaround from the draining draw at the Emirates on Saturday evening. Rather, Emery’s remarks were pointed, asserting his tactical changes — not tiredness — were the issue.
Duran’s arrival in place of right winger Leon Bailey altered the build-up formation, with Boubacar Kamara dropping into a right centre-back position and Matty Cash providing the width. The space left in midfield by Kamara had a domino effect, with Rogers receiving the ball deeper in a midfield pairing.
This led to Rogers’ booking and the third loose pass that encapsulated Villa’s turgid evening.
Here, Kamara is ahead of the ball and not in a position to counter-press after Rogers plays a first-time pass blindly into midfield, with Monaco again intercepting.
Like Mings and Konsa, Rogers’ flick causes an immediate counter-attack. Nine Villa players are wiped out of the move, with three Monaco players driving at two defenders.
In desperate attempts to atone for his error, Rogers fouls Lucas Michel on the edge of the box.
At this stage, the wind had gone from Villa’s sails. The possibility of leaving the Mediterranean coast with a point became more remote by the minute.
They remain on track to progress into the next phase but the golden ticket of finishing in the top eight was unequivocally damaged. And an angry Emery knew it.
(Top photo: Aston Villa/Aston Villa FC via Getty Images)
