West Ham 0-0 Aston Villa: Sam Allardyce's men fail to make 58% possession count

West Ham 0-0 Aston Villa

West Ham vs Aston Villa

West Ham and Aston Villa ground out a stalemate at Upton Park in a game where the home side could, in truth, have walked away with three points.

Key Stats

In a nil-nil draw, the number of shots which each side has is interesting. In this game, it reveals the mentalities of both teams; West Ham, with 11 shots, were very much the aggressors, whilst Aston Villa played a more reserved game as signalled by their mere six efforts.

The fact that both sides had more shots off target than on it highlights their profligacy; West Ham in particular had the chances to win the game, but their inability to convert their goalscoring opportunities left Sam Allardyce with two less points than he could have.

Man of the Match

Ron Vlaar ensured that the Villains left Upton Park with a clean sheet and subsequently a point with his solid performance in defence. The Dutchman, who has been one of Paul Lambert’s best performers this season, won all three of his attempted tackles, as well as removing imminent danger to Brad Guzan’s goal by way of his five interceptions.

Performance Scores

The Performance Score graph of this game reflects both sides’ showing well; whilst West Ham were the better team, Aston Villa were by no means awful. The Hammers, as the home team, had a hold on the game more or less from the start and tried to control proceedings – as their Performance Score shows, West Ham were successful in this. Aston Villa were content to sit back and allow West Ham to attack them; their muted Performance Score, in comparison to the home side’s, reflects this.

Key Observations

Paul Lambert, perhaps taking a lead from Brendan Rodgers, organised his defence in a back three. From the pass graphs of the three defenders, one can see that they were instructed to play a direct style of football in order to launch quick attacks from defence after soaking up the pressure from West Ham attacks. Ron Vlaar and Nathan Baker proved to be adept at this task, feeding their side’s wingers throughout the game.

However, Ciaran Clark only managed a pass completion rate of 58% and as such limited the effect which the Villains’ counter-attacks could have.

West Ham attempted to exploit the reduced protection out wide which Aston Villa’s back three formation caused. With the likes of Kevin Nolan and Carlton Cole featuring for the Hammers, West Ham aimed to use their strikers’ aerial threat by putting attacking down the flanks; it can be said that Lambert’s decision to use a back three played into West Ham’s hands by inviting them to utilise their big attackers’ heading ability.

However, the poor crossing ability of Allardyce’s team meant that they were unable to take advantage of the freedom which they were given in wide areas – just six out of a possible 41 crosses found a West Ham player.