_[‘Aston Villa’s](https://www.claretandhugh.info/west-ham-2-3-aston-villa-wrong-call-costs-hammers-dearly-as-points-trickle-away/) left-sided scheming_‘ is how the NYTimes described the overload of Aaron Wan Bissaka’s right side of defence yesterday. The Hammers’ right back had a torrid afternoon chasing Morgan Rogers all over Villa Park – unsuccessfully as it turned out – and the spaces Villa created as a result were fully exploited.
Indeed it was Rogers’ shot that led to the second goal – via Hermansen’s spilt save.
West Ham’s original three at the back set up would have enabled “AWB” to better seal off the attacks down the right but Todibo’s withdrawal put paid to that.
Consequently, according to [The Athletic:](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7138403/2026/03/23/aston-villa-left-side-emery/)
_“Aaron Wan-Bissaka was instructed to follow Morgan Rogers, even if it meant leaving his position to track the 23-year-old centrally….Wan-Bissaka’s preoccupation with Rogers continued to leave a huge hole in the right of West Ham’s defence, giving Digne or Ollie Watkins space to spin into that channel.”_
And the _recurring flawed strategy_ identified by Tanswell that was only too evident in the first half as John McGinn seemingly had all the time in the world from a set piece?
_“The free kick was shrewd, **with Villa identifying West Ham’s tendency to drop deep from wide set plays and vacate the edge of the box.**Villa played two passes around the area, ending with McGinn’s whipped effort into the bottom far corner.”_
This dropping deeper and deeper stems partly from a lack of leadership at the back and partly from a goal keeper without the confidence to try and force his troops further up the pitch. It clearly did for the Hammers again yesterday: There was nobody within five yards of McGinn as he lined up his -albeit excellent quality – strike to open the scoring.
Nuno has two weeks to try and engineer a change before the FA Cup quarter final. You can guarantee that if a newspaper journalist spots the recurrent flaw, an opposition analyst will do the same