Described: How Matty Cash became a crucial ‘box crasher’ for Aston Villa.
Recently, the Aston Villa defender has played a new position.
Aston Villa’s team under Unai Emery once again demonstrated their tactical adaptability in the thrilling victory over Crystal Palace on Saturday at Villa Park.
Football’s fluidity can’t be reduced to team sheets and formations; it’s considerably more sophisticated than that during the entire 90+ minutes. But I’m still going to carry it out.
Unai Emery frequently deploys a 4-4-2 formation with his team; against Palace, McGinn started on the right, Zaniolo on the left, and Diaby backed up Watkins up forward. Together with the now-standard back four of Digne, Torres, Konsa, and Cash, Douglas Luiz and Kamara form the pivot in midfield.
Matty Cash and Lucas Digne prefer to advance the pitch further, in Cash’s case, “much further” (more on him in a moment). Naturally, the opposition will have space in behind to take advantage of. Boubacar Kamara joined Pau Torres and Ezri Konsa in an auxiliary back three to prevent this by stepping in to take Cash’s place.
John McGinn then moves into the midfield position to join Douglas Luiz after dropping in from the right side. Nicolo Zaniolo teams up with Moussa Diaby and Ollie Watkins to form a “front three” on the other side to provide balance.