The Holy Trinity: Aston Villa conclusions from Hong Kong friendly loss v Bayern Munich
João Gomes scored his first Villa goal in the final friendly before the UEFA Super Cup
Friendlies don’t count. It’s important to acknowledge that because Friday’s friendly in Hong Kong was a defeat against Bayern Munich, against whom Aston Villa’s competitive record remains intact.
Villa played in their new third kit, which basically looks light blue from a distance. I think it’s decent enough in that context.
Speaking of context, that matters too. Bayern squeezed Villa back towards their own goal in the first half without being clinical and the goal they did get won’t have bothered manager Unai Emery one bit.
Villa’s defensive line from a dead ball was immaculate and the goal would have been disallowed for offside in the Premier League – no problem there.
Goalkeeper Marco Bizot made some very good saves as the German champions pretty much overpowered Villa after the break but could perhaps have done more to keep out Bayern’s second goal.
Here’s your Holy Trinity of match conclusions.
Independent football writing needs your support.
Upgrade now for our wraparound match coverage of every Aston Villa first team fixture and other features for just £4 per month.
1. Emery is starting to look at his real partnerships with PSG next
Pre-season is a time for experimentation and exploration, not to mention fitness for the sake of fitness, and in a World Cup year it’s even more useless as any kind of predictive exercise.
Where it gets interesting is late in the summer, when the last couple of friendlies pit Villa against the standard of opposition they can expect to face in the season ahead and time to shave the edges off the plan starts to run down.
A friendly against Bayern a week into August fits that profile for Villa this year and Emery’s team selection demonstrated some of his thinking.
João Gomes and Boubacar Kamara played together in the midfield double pivot from the start. Kamara’s only just coming back from injury but he already looks spot on; his reading of the game is world-class but we already knew that.
Villa certainly weren’t short of defensive cover from the middle and Gomes ratted around, putting in a bunch of spicy tackles as if to show off the goods before the season proper gets underway. He scored a terrific goal too.
Further back, Pau Torres played on the left of the back two with Ian Maatsen outside him at left-back. We’ll see that in competitive games too, irrespective of the potential signing of Matteo Ruggeri.
There are few concerns about Torres at this point. We know he’s got the defensive chops, mostly, and we know how important he is in possession. Maatsen, quietly, is putting together a decent pre-season. The first half in Hong Kong was no exception.
2. We saw a reshuffled front line and another new role for George Hemmings
Conversely, the three players lining up off the striker were not the finished article. Villa started with George Hemmings, Emi Buendía and Evann Guessand playing behind Brian Madjo – the way they were deployed was much more interesting than the personnel.
None of these players saw much of the ball but I thought it noteworthy that Buendía played in his familiar left-sided role while Hemmings, more commonly a central midfielder until this summer and latterly playing off the left, switched to the right-hand side.
Those moves allowed Guessand to play in the middle while a young midfielder occupied the spot he filled in his brief first-team Villa career so far.
In all likelihood, there’s nothing more to that than the impending departure of the Ivorian. If he does somehow end up in the squad, giving him a run in the middle while compromising someone else hints at his role, if he has one.
The Guessand experiment on the right-wing didn’t do Villa or the player himself any favours. Instead, using him as a central attacking midfielder and in the front two out of possession suggests that his positional mis-use, at least, is over.
3. Matty Cash can hold his own against high-quality opposition
Let’s start at the end. Luis Díaz scored Bayern’s second goal and the Villa player best placed to prevent it was Matty Cash. He could have been a little smarter; Díaz wrongfooted him and the Colombian beat Bizot high to make it 2-0.
It was a fantastic finish from a supremely capable footballer who bested Cash in a split-second. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it and it was the only failing from Villa’s right-back.
Cash started the match as captain and filled the costume. He has evolved into a very good right-back both defensively and when Villa have the ball, a far cry from the player who was so roundly criticised for years – rightly and wrongly – by Villa supporters.
He’s 29 now. He’ll be part of Emery’s revamped leadership group after the sales of Youri Tielemans, Morgan Rogers and Lucas Digne because he’s too old, too embedded at Villa, not to be.
But Cash has earned that role and his brief captaincy in Hong Kong on merit. He’s one of the best all-round full-backs in the Premier League and one of Villa’s best right-backs for generations.
We’re well past him being underappreciated, thankfully, but it’s good to remind ourselves every now and again that he’s matured into a crucial part of Emery’s Villa team.
Did you know you can make Aston Villa Review a preferred source on Google? This will help your Google services surface our work more frequently and that’s good for both of us. Give it a try!
A message to our subscribers…
Thank you for supporting independent football writing.
Aston Villa Review can’t survive without you and we’re grateful to each and every subscriber.
Tell a friend about us!