Aston Villa and Steven Gerrard's greatest weakness exposed vs Watford

Aston Villa's main weakness was exposed by a well thought out game plan from Watford and Roy Hodgson on Saturday afternoon.

As outlined prior to the game by a main characteristic of Steven Gerrard's side is how far forward he likes to have the likes of Matty Cash and Lucas Digne.

Villa were defeated on the opening day of the season by Watford due to a similar weakness being exposed, as the likes of Ismalia Sarr and Emmanuel Dennis thrived in the open spaces that the Villa full backs provided. The same space that the same players thrived in at Villa Park yesterday.

The below graphic is taken via SofaScore and displays the average positions of all Aston Villa players in this fixture.

Cash and Digne have been pushed up incredibly high, as Gerrard aims to use the full backs predominantly in attack and set up passing sequences and triangles with the likes of Jacob Ramsey, John McGinn, Emi Buendia and Danny Ings.

The tactic, therefore, leaves a high amount of space between the full backs and centre-backs regardless of whether a midfielder such as Ramsey drops deeper to occupy the space.

The average positions of the Watford players outlines why they had so much joy in this fixture on the counter attack.

All three of their forward players in Josh King, Dennis and Sarr all predominantely operated within the space that the full backs had left between them and the centre backs. Villa were particularly vulnerable after losing possession, as Watford thrived in these spaces on the counter attacks and forced Emi Martinez into several key saves whilst doing so.

Douglas Luiz can also be seen relatively high when considering his role as the holding midfielder, therefore not providing an additional level of coverage for the back line.