Arsenal v Aston Villa: the utterly unexpected tactics

 

• Some very good reasons why Arsenal will beat Villa on Sunday
• The Arsenal plan: retaliation before the opposition attack

By Sir Hardly Anyone

Now here is something rather strange.  Assuming that you don’t know the answer already, where do you think Aston Villa are in the tackling and fouling statistics?  (Data below as usual from WhoScored).

The answer surprised me – although maybe you have a wider perspective than I do.  For Arsenal put in six percent more tackles than Aston Villa but Arsenal get 11% fewer fouls against them than Villa.  Indeed when we get through to the final comparison chart at the end of this piece, the difference between the two clubs is astonishing.

Of course there is nothing wrong with the basic statistics  – they just mean that Arsenal are more skilled in the tackle than Aston Villa players – but nonetheless, such a wide difference is quite  unusual.   Here are the basic figures and just by way of comparison I have included Tottenham and Manchster City as well.  Plus the shots and goals scored too, to add another perspective.

 

Team	Tackles pg	Fouls pg	Shots pg	Goals PG
3. Tottenham	19.6	11.0	12.8	2.10
18. Arsenal	15.5	10.1	8.4	2.42
19. Aston Villa	14.6	11.1	11.2	2.06
20. Manchester City	13.1	8.0	8.2	2.29

 

Top of the tackling teams is Tottenham who put in almost half as many tackles again as Manchester City do per match.   And top of the fouling group in this selection are Tottenham and Aston Villa.

On the goal scoring side, once again Tottenham are top in terms of shots per game, again taking over half as many again per game as Manchester City, but coming out with fewer goals. 

It really is blindingly obvious: if that Tottenham team wants to make an impact they really do have to improve their shooting accuracy, for such figures as these, really do show where Tottenham and Aston Villa are getting it wrong:  they are taking shots galore and just not getting the goals as a result.  They are tackling like mad but simply being called up for fouls.

It is also worth having a look at the yellow cards – and I’ll quote these across the whole season as that makes it clearer just how much of a difference there is between the teams

 

Team	All Yellow cards	Position	Yellow from fouls	Position
Aston Villa	83	3rd	52	3rd
Tottenham	72	8th	45	9th
Manchester City	48	19th	29	19th
Arsenal	46	20th	30	20th

 

This really does show the difference in style and approach from Arsenal and Manchester City (the two lowest carded teams in the league) and Villa and Tottenham.    In short Aston Villa have got 90% more yellow cards this season than Arsenal!

So let’s do the normal comparison, with all three columns on the per game rate

 

Team	Tackles PG	Fouls PG	Yellows from Fouls PG
Aston Villa	14.6	11.1	1.63
Tottenham	19.6	11.0	1.41
Manchester City	13.1	8.0	0.94
Arsenal	15.5	10.1	0.97

 

It is pretty obvious what Villa need to do to improve their situation: improve the quality of their tackling and tackle less.   Tackling less alone however is not enough (Arsenal in fact are tackling more than Aston Villa) they are (at least in the eyes of the referees) tackling better.

Just how much difference this could make can be seen by the ratio chart

 

Team	Tackles Per foul	Tackles per yellow	Fouls per yellow
Aston Villa	1.32	8.96	6.81
Tottenham	1.78	13.90	7.80
Manchester City	1.64	13.93	8.51
Arsenal	1.53	15.98	10.32

 

The success of the Arteta defensive model and the fallacy of the Tottenham approach also, can be seen from the last two columns.

Arsenal can put in 16% more tackles than Aston Villa before a foul is called.

Arsenal can put in 78% more tackles than Aston villa before a card is waved.

Arsenal can put in 52% more fouls as Aston Villa before being given a yellow card

Those three figures show the advantage Arsenal take into this match in terms of their defensive capabilities – and it is a set of figures that has been achieved at Arsenal by Mikel Arteta.  For you might recall if you are a regular reader on this site that when Arteta joined the club Arsenal were the most carded club in the league.  Now they are the least carded club.

And what is interesting of course is that Arteta took over from the man who is now Aston Villa’s manager: Unai Emery.

It all shows the benefit of having a clear strategy in defence and a fulsome understanding of what PGMO and its referees get up to.

We will, as usual have a look at our referee for this match, and what we can expect him to do, in a later article before the game itself.