Aston Villa achieved a big win against Brighton (6-1) in the seventh week of the 2023/24 Premier League at the Villa Park stadium. This was one of Villa’s biggest wins of the season and also Brighton’s biggest defeat. The duel between these two teams is quite interesting to watch. Both, you could say, are in the category of dark horse clubs in the race to win the Premier League trophy this season.
Also, the two clubs playing in the European League experienced quite drastic increases last season. Together with coach Robert De Zerbi, Brighton is one of the teams that plays attractively from foot to foot. Several established teams such as Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea were defeated by Brighton. Not surprisingly, De Zerbi, who is from Italy, has been attracted by big teams, including Real Madrid, who have included him as one of Carlo Ancelotti’s replacements.
Meanwhile, Aston Villa, coached by Unai Emery, has become a team that appears effective and seems mentally mature. Last season, Villa was able to recover from adversity when Emery took over, who replaced Steven Gerrard as coach. What these two teams have in common is that they don’t have an expensive squad. The composition of the squad consists of players who are considered mediocre but the two coaches succeeded in making the players into a strong and stable team. Therefore, both teams are attached to dark horse status.
Having the status of dark horse teams in the Premier League, both Brighton and Villa often make things difficult for established teams. In fact, established teams find it difficult to beat these teams or even experience defeat.
Obviously, these two teams have relatively equal strengths. Ideally, the match between the two teams will be exciting. However, the reality is different. Brighton bowed at Villa Park with a quite striking score. The reason is not Brighton’s game because Brighton still maintains foot-to-foot play by implementing transitions between the players. The problem is, Brighton is facing a team coached by Unai Emery who is keen to read the weaknesses in Brighton’s style of play. When Brighton controlled the match and insisted on attacking Villa’s goal, Unai implemented a counter-attack system.
Brighton may use foot-to-foot play. Ball control is emphasized. Statistics show that Brighton controlled 68 percent of the match and completed 88 percent of the passes. In contrast to Aston Villa which only had 78 percent passes, Villa’s passing resulted in 6 goals.
“De Zerbi Ball” was destroyed at the hands of Unai Emery’s team. Emery was keen to see Brighton’s weakness in controlling the ball but the quality of the back line was inadequate. When there was a transition between the back lines that helped the attack, Villa took advantage of the momentum of losing the ball.
When they lost the ball, Villa immediately launched a counterattack and the back line was not ready to anticipate the counterattack. The 6 goals that scored against Brighton were the result of the effectiveness of Villa’s play and also the weaknesses of Brighton’s playing system.
Brighton perhaps learned from the defeat against Aston Villa. In the end, matches are always determined by the final result and not solely by possession of the ball. Immediately following the results of the match, Brighton dropped out of the top 4 of the Premier League standings and sat in 6th position. Then, Villa rose to 5th position. Considering the position of these two teams, it is very likely that both teams will compete in the top six of the Premier League competition this season.
When Aston Villa destroyed Brighton’s De Zerbi Ball it is definitely a headline news for all EPL lovers. The fans would definitely want to see the come back and uprising of dark horse teams like Aston Villa and Brighton in the upcoming weeks.
ASL
