Aston Villa recorded back-to-back Premier League wins, defeating Crystal Palace 1-0 at Villa Park on Saturday. One player that caught my eye was Matty Cash; let’s dive into his performance.
Cash played a huge role in the winning goal. Taking receipt of a sublime defence-splitting pass from Captain John McGinn, and delivering a low ball into the box that saw Joachim Andersen (under pressure from Ollie Watkins) divert the ball past his own goalkeeper, Vicente Guaita.
It was the only goal of the game in a tight contest, but a contest that Villa control well, with Crystal Palace failing to register a single shot on target.
PASSING NETWORK, EXPECTED THREAT & PLAYER STATS | MATTY CASH
I’d say, in my opinion, this was Matty Cash’s best performance of the season. He’s had to bide his time post-World Cup to regain his starting spot from Ashley Young, and has also taken time to adapt his style to Emery’s. But, this performance, backed up by his performance at Everton, shows signs of a return to the top form he has produced consistently since his arrival from Nottingham Forest.
We saw flexibility in Emery’s system against Crystal Palace, with Cash becoming more advanced and offering width as well as Moreno on the opposite flank. Take a look at the image below: you can see the average position of Matty Cash is much wider and more advanced which increased our xT (expected threat) in this area; basically, we caused Palace problems down this flank.
As you can also see in the graphic, it highlights the triangles of play we witnessed against Palace between Cash, Kamara, and McGinn, all of whom played key roles in the build-up to the winning goal. Kamara’s balls into Cash – highlighted with the darker blue line – indicate a higher xT, telling us our chance of a goal scoring creation is at its highest in this passing combination.
Our right side has been very reserved since Emery’s appointment, more narrow and deeper – Young almost making a back-three in the build-up – but with the return of Cash, and McGinn, we’ve slowly seen that side of the pitch become more expansive.
In the below image, highlighting our danger creation areas (xT values), you can consistently see the ball progressing up field, via Mings and Konsa: building out of the back, playing narrow, and using the right side as equally in this fixture as the left side. A very balanced and dominant performance.
The triangles we saw with Cash, Kamara, and McGinn resulted in Cash receiving three progressive passes, capturing Cash’s position to receive the ball in attacking areas, and making 36 ball carries, the most behind our main possession builders of Mings, Konsa, and Luiz.
Cash also topped the charts for take-ons, attempting five and successfully completing three, while also taking ten touches in the attacking thirdβthe most of any Villa player to do so.
And it’s not just the attacking output where Cash excelled; defensively he contributed very well; he made the most tackles in the defensive and central midfield areas, two and three respectively, more than any other Villa player. “A top performance”!
Matty Cash spoke to Villa TV post-match and gave us an insight into his positional role under Unai Emery:
βIβve had to wait my time a little bit to get forward,β said the Villa defender.
βMe and the manager have worked closely on that in terms of having my time when to go and when not to go.
βAnd here we thought there were spaces on the sides for both sides, thatβs what the manager spoke about on Friday.
βSo, heβs a tactical genius.β
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UNDERSTANDING PASSING NETWORKS
AUTHOR | RYAN MCKEOWN
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HIT THE IMAGE – to be diverted.
