The Holy Trinity: Aston Villa conclusions from friendlies v Marseille and Villarreal

Villa close out pre-season with spicy back-to-back friendlies in France and Spain

Pre-season is over and the start of the Premier League season is now just a few days away, so let’s revisit the last two friendlies.

Aston Villa opted to round off their pre-season campaign with a double-header over the weekend, in France on Saturday and in Spain on Sunday.

If the plan was to put the players through two wholly different experiences, mission accomplished!

Villa played against Ligue 1 outfit Marseille on Saturday and La Liga side Villarreal on Sunday and Unai Emery can look back on a rewarding exercise even if one of those matches came very close to being unnecessarily costly.

We saw a couple of different tactical approaches, notably with John McGinn tucked in on the right and exit-bound Jacob Ramsey doing the same on the left, leaving full-backs Lucas Digne and Matty Cash to provide the width.

McGinn scored a gorgeous goal at Marseille, as did Emi Buendía at Villarreal. Tyrone Mings made a big mistake that led directly to a goal. Ollie Watkins is on fire. Some other things happened too.

Here’s your Holy Trinity of match conclusions from Villa’s back-to-back practice matches against two of European football’s big boys.