Unai Emery chuckled at Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins calling him a “tactical genius” — after the England international’s two second-half goals off the bench away to Chelsea on Saturday stretched the club’s winning run across all competitions to 11 matches.
Considering how often manager Emery is lauded as detail-oriented and tactically excellent, Villa have been an interesting case study either side of half-time in their matches this season.
More often, they have found themselves behind (six games) than ahead (four) at the interval, with eight of their 18 Premier League matches level at that stage. From the restart for the second half, though, only league leaders Arsenal are better than Villa, with Emery to face his previous English employers next at the Emirates Stadium tomorrow (Tuesday).
This pattern was repeated across London at the weekend, as Emery and company turned a half-time deficit into a 2-1 win against Chelsea with 63rd and 84th minute goals.
Emery could call upon four senior international players from the bench at Stamford Bridge in Watkins, Jadon Sancho (both England), Amadou Onana (Belgium), Lucas Digne (France), plus Netherlands Under-21 international Lamare Bogarde.
Emery called his players “mature” and “responsible,”. Villa are the second-oldest team in the league, and, as per the CIES Football Observatory (a research group in Switzerland), the second-most stable — a measure of how long, on average, players have been at a club.
The strength of the connections, especially in contrast to Chelsea’s younger, rotating squad, showed on the day, with Morgan Rogers assisting Watkins for the equaliser. Those two have combined for 37 chances and eight goals in the Premier League since the start of last season.
Saturday’s system, a 4-4-2 (with narrow No 10s) or 4-2-3-1, featuring flying full-backs, is how Villa have started every match since the start of that 2024-25 campaign — with the exception being a one-off 3-4-3 experiment away to Crystal Palace in February this year. They lost that one, 4-1.
Watkins explained Emery identified Chelsea’s overload at the back when Villa played long balls. They set up to build in a 4-2-4, dropping both defensive midfielders, and the west Londoners matched them up, but moved left-winger Alejandro Garnacho narrow near right-sided centre-back Ezri Konsa.
Villa did not take advantage of this enough, and goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez primarily passed left, or launched balls downfield, where Donyell Malen had little joy against centre-backs Trevoh Chalobah and Benoit Badiashile. Emery’s No 10s Rogers, John McGinn and Emiliano Buendia were overrun trying to sweep up second balls.
With Rogers and McGinn as the laterals in the team, playing wrong-sided (as a right-footer off Villa’s left and left-footer off the right), they were better set up to receive back to goal, but rarely had passes come to their feet.
Emery has a preference for establishing control early in games, which is why Villa typically start slowly, trying to bait the opposition press. Only Palace have a higher share of attacking touches in the central third of the pitch this season.
Martinez kicks long seven per cent less in the second half of matches (compared to first halves), and Villa played round and through Chelsea much better as they fatigued on Saturday.
In the example below, they are exploiting Garnacho’s aggressive positioning shortly after making a triple substitution to introduce Watkins, Sancho and Onana — which had the added benefit of letting Youri Tielemans move to play as a No 10.
Defensive midfielder Boubacar Kamara spots Marc Cucurella making a pressing jump, and whips a pass up to Sancho. He dribbles inside, escapes his marker, and Villa have a four-v-three situation. The move ends with Ian Maatsen forcing a save from Robert Sanchez.
Similarly, centre-back Victor Lindelof found more confidence to carry the ball more in build-up. “We started getting better and we needed fresh legs, but how we got our momentum, with the players showing their mentality to exploit their qualities, was fantastic,” Emery told reporters later.
With Joao Pedro focusing on shutting down the passing lane between him and partner Konsa, Lindelof found joy making bold dribbles upfield to break the lines.
Problems for Villa in other phases of the game included efforts to exploit Chelsea on counter-attacks from regains deep in their half, only for the first or second pass of a move to be poor.
Here’s an example of that five minutes in, where Cole Palmer gets in behind and collects Pedro Neto’s pass. Kamara recovers to stop Enzo Fernandez receiving the ensuing cross, and twice Villa try to counter. First, Maatsen only kicks the ball into team-mate Buendia’s chest, then Kamara slips Rogers away. But before he can drive into space, Reece James recovers and tackles him.
Villa only had four sequences of six-plus passes in the first half on Saturday (compared with 14 after the break), leaning too heavily into transitional tactics. Emery was critical post-match of their issues keeping the ball.
Here is Kamara trying to release Matty Cash on a counter-attack, with the Villa right-back running clear from Garnacho. The pass is underhit, and Cucurella intercepts.
These moves worked better in the second half, as Chelsea’s counter-press dropped off. Villa were smarter in making shorter combinations rather than playing long, which is how Tielemans, Rogers and Watkins combined to send Kamara through on 60 minutes, though his shot was smothered by Sanchez.
Another issue was their passive defensive approach.
Villa were content to cede possession, allowing Chelsea 71 per cent in the first half, but making just three tackles compared to 13. They spent much of the game’s opening 45 minutes in a compact 4-4-2 block, often getting pushed back. Villa did not press well from triggers.
Here is an instance of them committing six to press — look at Tielemans jumping to Moises Caicedo — only to then drop off when Chelsea play the ball backwards.
Likewise, in this moment from the first half, Malen presses Sanchez, so Buendia is then forced to step up to Badiashile but McGinn does not commit to Fernandez. This means, in two passes, Chelsea can get in behind the Villa midfield.
Villa equalised from a high turnover, though: Tielemans pressed Badiashile, forcing a pass through midfield which Onana intercepted, then Kamara found the feet of Rogers, who slipped Watkins in.
Inevitably, this Villa winning run is unsustainable. The streak is now at 11 matches, with the past nine victories all by a single goal. It smacks of the tournament-style football Emery is renowned for.
As a four-time winner of the Europa League with Sevilla (three times) and Villarreal (he also got to its final as Arsenal manager), his strength is creating teams who are hard to play against, built on a specific system and outstanding at playing ‘up’ against better opponents.
In the past two completed seasons, his Villa side have reached a Champions League quarter-final and semi-finals in the FA Cup and UEFA Conference League. With five wins from their first six league phase matches in the Europa League this term, they are among the favourites to win UEFA’s second-tier club competition.
This is the longest Emery has spent at a club since his three and a half years with Sevilla (January 2013 to June 2016), and he is succeeding in an unconventional style.
Squad rotation is a must to manage Villa through multiple competitions — he is yet to name an unchanged league team in 2025-26 – and things have become so good that he is laughing off questions about a title charge.
“Not really,” he chuckled post-game on Saturday in response to suggestions that Villa, one point behind second-placed Manchester City and three off Arsenal with the season one round of matches from its halfway stage, are making it a three-horse title race.
Tactical genius or not, Emery has made Villa an incredible second-half team.
