Three things Unai Emery can do to keep Aston Villa in the top four this season

Any immediate fears that Aston Villa may come down with a bad case of Second Season Syndrome seem to be unfounded. With seven games of the season in the books, Unai Emery’s side are only outside of the top four on goal difference and just recorded a famous 1-0 win over Bayern Munich in the Champions League. Everything looks rather rosy.

Which isn’t to say that things have been perfect. There have been scares against bottom-half sides like Ipswich Town and Everton and while they’ve only been beaten once in all competitions, there have been a few slightly sub-par displays. In other words, Emery can do more to ensure that Villa get another year among Europe’s elite. Here are three areas which are causing some degree of concern.

1. Find more threat from out wide

While it would be a stretch to say that goals have been a problem so far, it’s equally true that not only have seven sides scored more often that Aston Villa but a full 12 teams have racked up more expected goals. It’s the real goals that count, of course, but these thins tend to average out of the course of the season, and there are signs that Villa may not score enough to earn a top four berth if things continue as they are.

The numbers look good through the midfield, where Morgan Rogers and Youri Tielemans have created a healthy number of chances, but otherwise the stats suggest that Villa need to find more paths to goal, and that’s especially true down the wings.

Lucas Digne, who is third in the chance creation charts in league matches, is doing some strong work on the overlap but the lack of a threat down the right is clear from the data, and is thrown into especially sharp focus when you see that the next most creative player after Digne is his back-up Ian Maatsen, who hasn’t even stated a game yet.

Leon Bailey hasn’t generated much from down the right wing and the rotating cast of players on the left side of the field, which has included John McGinn, Jaden Philogene-Bidace and Jacob Ramsey, has offered even less. The over-reliance on a few bright sparks to generate chances carries the risk that once opposing teams are able to get a handle on the players that are creating opportunities, the attack will start to look rather anaemic.

Whether it’s a matter of individual players struggling to find their best form or a structural issue with Emery’s strategy isn’t entirely clear – but one way or the other, Emery needs to get chances out of players other than Rogers and Tielemans, and especially from the right wing.

2. Figure out how to include Jhon Durán

Over the summer, it looked all but certain that Durán would leave Villa Park – instead, he stayed, started scoring for fun and has signed a brand new contract following an extraordinary run of goals from the bench. To put what the young Colombian has done in context, no player in Premier League history had ever scored more than two game-winning goals as a substitute before in a season. Durán scored three inside four matches.

That’s both wonderful news and something of a headache. Barring a few experiments with a front two in the last knockings of a couple of games, Emery has stuck religiously to a 4-2-3-1 formation which only leaves room for one striker – and it’s fairly clear that he has no intention of dropping Ollie Watkins, who is at least beginning to find form following a slow start.

But Durán is scoring goals at a faster rate than Erling Haaland, several of them screamers, and is clearly in the form of his life. Having a player that dangerous and in such searingly good touch and leaving him to rot on the bench for the first hour of every game seems extraordinary.

In a perfect world, the solution to the first two issues would be one and the same – a change of formation which allowed Watkins and Durán to share the pitch more often and to ensure that Villa’s most lethal players play as many minutes as possible. If creativity is a concern, which it should be, then it becomes even more important to get the best finishers on the field.

3. Tighten up the right side of defence

The fundamental story of Villa’s overall defensive record is much the same as it is with the attack – it’s fine, but not necessarily top-four level so far. Brighton & Hove Albion are the only team in the top half to have shipped more.

The main issue so far seems to have been individual errors, but there is perhaps a broader issue too. So while Ipswich Town’s first goal stemmed from a bad pass by Ezri Konsa and Wolverhampton Wanderers’ opener at Villa Park a few weeks ago was the result of a loose ball from Diego Carlos, both mistakes that can be chalked down as “one of those things”, there space attackers have found and the lack of tight marking has been worrying.

Just look at how easy it was for Kai Havertz to slip his marker at the far post to score Arsenal’s opener in the tense 2-0 defeat at Villa Park, and see how little pressure Konsa was able to exert on Dwight McNeil for Everton’s opener in the eventual 3-2 win. Liam Delap’s eventual equaliser at Portman Road owed a favour to Carlos buying a dummy far too easily, too, again gifting room for a shot that maybe shouldn’t have existed.

In the league, Carlos and Matty Cash have one successful tackle between them. Konsa is doing rather better, even if he has had a couple of lapses, but it may well be that the best thing Emery can do is simply to sign another player to bolster the right-hand side, especially with a lot of faith having to be placed in the hands of young Lamare Bogarde so far. If Villa have the money to do any work in the January transfer market, the right flank certainly looks like the part of the pitch that needs reinforcements.

Aston Villa aren’t playing badly and they’re getting results, and at the moment that’s all that matters. But there is room for improvement and there are parts of the side that need to be sharpened up if Villa want to keep winning for long enough to reach the top four once more. But the way they’ve been going since appointing Emery, you wouldn’t bet against them figuring it all out.