Aston Villa secured a hard-fought point on the opening weekend of the Premier League season after a 0-0 draw with Newcastle United.
The visitors started brightly and almost went ahead early on with Marco Bizot denying Anthony Elanga with a fine save, but the chances continued to arrive for Eddie Howe’s men as Villa struggled to find any rhythm or quality in our passing.
READ MORE: Villa player ratings vs Newcastle Utd: Decisive duo impress in battling draw
Although things did improve after the half-time interval, Ezri Konsa’s sending off after 66 minutes brought an abrupt end to that improved spell, as Newcastle once again threatened and will likely feel disappointed to not have come away with all three points.
Nevertheless, Villa deserve plenty of credit too for digging in, remaining organised and disciplined defensively to secure a clean sheet, and it’s hopefully a strong foundation on which we can improve next weekend when we visit Brentford.
Decent point given how game played out
Villa were far from our best in this encounter which was disappointing given the build-up to the new season, but given the way things played out, Unai Emery and the players will likely be content with a point at the end of it.
Newcastle had their chances to seal a win and Konsa’s dismissal really complicated things for us in the final half hour or so, but the defensive display was excellent for the most part to keep a clean sheet and ensure we at least took a point away from it.
There will clearly need to be improvement in our attacking play as we lacked quality in the final third, but when considering how poor we were and being down to 10 men in the second half, it’s a draw that we’ll accept and hopefully build on.
Pau’s ability to build out from the back missed
While Tyrone Mings gave us important defensive solidity at the back in this game, we did miss the composure and distribution of Pau Torres in defence as we constantly had nowhere to go when playing out from the back.
Led by Anthony Gordon, Newcastle often refused to engage and press our defenders, as they patiently waited for the ball to move into midfield or to our full-backs before pouncing, and Villa consistently surrendered possession cheaply throughout the game.
Perhaps we wouldn’t have kept a clean sheet and ultimately would have lost the game had Mings not been involved given he offers more steeliness than Pau, but the Spaniard’s passing quality was a notable absence in this encounter.
Tielemans more influential in deeper role
Similarly to the above point, Villa missed Youri Tielemans in a deeper role as the Belgian midfielder is much more influential and effective when he’s pulling the strings in the midfield pivot.
With our orchestrator deployed in a more advanced role, we struggled to play with any rhythm and were poor in possession as we advanced up the pitch, and so Emery will surely restore him into his usual role alongside Boubacar Kamara at Brentford next weekend.
It’s not a criticism of the starting line-up as my prediction was this set-up given the threat that Newcastle carry, but in hindsight, we did lack quality in that area of the pitch and it hurt us as the game played out.
Bizot with a fantastic Villa debut
One of the main positives was the performance of Bizot on his debut, as he produced some fine saves, including a decisive early stop to prevent us from falling behind, while he commanded his area well throughout for the most part.
It came after a positive pre-season in which he proved capable of being a reliable and solid back-up option between the posts, and so this was pleasing to see in competitive action as he’ll hopefully continue to prove to be a smart signing.
Emiliano Martinez will no doubt come back into the Villa XI next Saturday having served his suspension, but he’ll perhaps feel under a bit more pressure this season to perform at a higher level to ensure that he doesn’t lose his place to more pressing competition from his Dutch teammate.
Emery right to limit substitutions or more changes needed in latter stages?
Given the situation we were in for the last half hour or so after Konsa’s dismissal, it’s understandable why Emery wanted to maintain our shape and organisation as we were performing well from a defensive perspective to hold out for a draw.
However, the introduction of Donyell Malen in the 84th minute not only gave us more energy on the pitch, but it got the Villa faithful reinvigorated too as the Dutchman threatened in the latter stages to help us pull off an unlikely win.
Our balance was good up to that point and so it’s understandable why Emery didn’t want to change things, but perhaps had Malen been introduced a little earlier and the likes of Ian Maatsen and Emiliano Buendia were given a part to play, we would have had fresh legs for the closing minutes to try and offer more of a threat on the counter attack and see out the game more convincingly.
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