Aston Villa picked up their first point of the Premier League season in a 0-0 draw with Hull City on Saturday, but should have left the MKM Stadium with more.
Villa are still waiting for their first goal of the season, despite creating 1.93 expected goals (xG) against the newly promoted side, who are yet to concede a goal this season.
One one hand, it was a step in the right direction as Villa mostly dominated the game and took a point from a stadium where Manchester United were defeated two weeks ago. On the other, it felt like a missed opportunity to really get their season off the ground.
Unai Emery was complimentary of his team’s efforts, but admitted they needed to be more clinical in front of goal. They still only have one shot on target in the first three games.
More than that, Villa may have needed a more aggressive approach in order to take the points home, particularly in an at times meandering second half.
That was in part due to Emery, who was slow to make substitutions and change what was an uninspiring starting lineup. Only two of the club’s ten new signings – Zion Suzuki and Nicolas Jackson – started the game, and that was probably because Villa had no other appealing options.
Four of the summer’s acquisitions were on the bench, and three made it onto the pitch, but Emery waited until the 74th minute to make his first substitutions, 11 minutes after their opponents.
Two of the new players who did make an appearance – Matteo Ruggeri and Aaron Wan-Bissaka – were defenders, while perhaps the most exciting of the four was left on the bench in Ibrahim Mbaye.
Admittedly, he did only officially join on deadline day, but Mbaye’s directness and one-on-one ability could have helped crack a Hull low block which Villa struggled to break down.
Villa laboured against these types of teams last season and one of their biggest weaknesses was a lack of pace or explosiveness in the front line. An attacking trio of George Hemmings, Emi Buendia and John McGinn is not going to solve that issue.
Emery’s methods are beyond reproach, and the results speak for themselves. His approach asks a lot of players mentally, and therefore his bar for trusting them is high. A byproduct of that is new players being eased in slowly, which is reasonable when it is one or two new players.
When half the team has changed though, he may not have that luxury, especially when some of the preexisting players are not exactly lighting up the pitch, which was true on Saturday.
Emery seemed to prioritise maintaining structure and not losing the game, rather than overextending to try to win it.
Perhaps that was a smart approach for a team with potentially fragile confidence after a slow start, but if anything it ended up giving Hull encouragement to try to snatch the points late.
Saturday’s draw gave Villa a clean sheet and a point to build on, and the narrative would be different had they scored one of the chances they created.
But until the likes of Mbaye and Johan Manzambi are on the pitch, the optimal version of Villa will not be realised and stodgy performances in the final third will continue.
Rather than sticking with the tried and tested to maintain a certain floor, at some point soon Emery may need to break from his usual tendencies and throw some more mercurial players into the lineup to raise the ceiling.
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