During the 2023-24 Premier League Season, Aston Villa achieved a historic milestone by qualifying for the Champions League for the first time in 41 years. Game insights analyst Aston Cox delves into Emiliano Martinez’s pivotal role in this remarkable success.
Data insights reveal that Martinez has attempted 1272 passes this season, with a success rate of 81%. This places him 6th among Premier League goalkeeper’s who have played 900 minutes or more. However, exploring this deeper may underpin a key tactic utilised within the build-up phase for Aston Villa.
Half of Martinez’s passes are executed whilst under pressure from the opposition, who aim to influence Martinez’s decision in attempt to regain possession of the ball. This emphasises the coach’s role in creating practices that place goalkeepers under pressure when looking to create realistic and relevant challenges for the goalkeepers. Mastering this will not only benefit goalkeepers but also provides outfield players with repetition of creating space to support the goalkeeper to penetrate the oppositions press. Understanding this will assist in bridging core skills and individual tactics to overcome the challenge the opposition set with their press.
INSERT DUAL AXIS
In addition, Martinez has achieved an 84% pass success rate when under pressure, the highest in the Premier League. This statistic displays Martinez’s ability to execute successful passes whilst being placed under pressure from the opposition. However, what does this look like? What impact does it have?
Playing under pressure
Observations reveal that Martinez intentionally holds onto the ball to invite the opposition’s press. By delaying the pass, it forces the opposition players to adjust their pressing strategy, creating larger distances for the opposition players to press centre backs and full backs. As highlighted in the video, this tactic gives Aston Villa’s defenders and midfielders more time and space to make effective decisions to advance through the thirds once they have received the ball. This extra time also supports midfielders and forwards to create space and offer the best support. Therefore, this creates more of a challenge for the opposition to prevent Aston Villa from progressing from the ‘build the attack’ phase to the ‘create the attack’ phase.
Martinez’s patients, composure and ability to manage the ball under pressure creates the opportunities for one or two teammates to be unmarked and in space to progress up the field. The challenge then becomes quickly getting the ball to the spare player to capitalise on the overload, as illustrated on the moving tactics board. Additionally, the clips have emphasised the importance of teaching players how and when to dictate the tempo of play. Facilitating opportunities for players to construct their understanding of when to slow the game down to invite pressure or to speed the game up to penetrate the press is crucial. Allowing players to make these decisions within your practice will support players to feel empowered in making tactical decisions on when to dictate the tempo of the game paired with having an understanding on players capabilities will therefore underpin the tactics and strategies used.
Coaching considerations
How can we encourage the development of core skills linked to individual tactics?
When creating practice designs, do I look to create opportunities for my goalkeepers to deal with realistic and relevant challenges faced in their game format?
Do I look to implement tactics to overcome pressing strategies from the opposition?
Further learning
Session plan
https://learn.englandfootball.com/sessions/resources/2023/Goalkeeping-session-end-lines