Aston Villa’s search for a goal continued on Saturday, while the side of Unai Emery scraped a draw against Everton.
Here are our explorations of the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
Villa’s goal drought
Aston Villa delivered a disappointing attacking display on Saturday, because they remain aimless for the 2025/26 season.
The side of Unai Emery only generated 0.41 expected goals (XG) in the Hill Dickinson Stadium, with their attacking threat, especially for the fourth week in a row, little to no.
Even the second half introduction of deadline day drawing Harvey Elliott (£ 5.4 million) did not succeed in galvanizing them:
Morgan Rogers (£ 7.0 million) and Ollie Watkins (£ 8.9 million) were particularly bad, where Watkins did not register any shot on goal.
He also succeeded in just one touch in the Everton penalty box.
“We have to support him, and every player must feel at ease. There are good and bad moments. Players go through dips and performance, but we have to find the right balance. It is important to stay consistent – whether we win or not.
“For Ollie Watkins – calm. Keep working. We don’t score and the striker will be the focus. But I am not very worried about him. We will score again and he will score again.” – Unai Emery on Ollie Watkins
With Rogers and Watkins under par, Emiliano Buendia (£ 5.3 million) was the brightest spark in Villa.
Handed his first Premier League start in more than two years, the Argentinian almost broke the impasse shortly after the break, but his effort was just bent wide from the post.
Emery will hope that the attacking form of villa will improve when they are confronted with Brentford in the EFL Cup on Tuesday before they travel to Sunderland in Gameweek 5.
“Of course we need more offensive. We have to try to help our strikers, Wingers and midfielders. [I am] Happy because we competed and this is the first step forward. We are going to work and we know within the problem we have. ” – Unai Emery
Villas Defense/Tielemans Injury
A positive thing for Emery was the defensive representation of his team, especially that of Emiliano Martinez (£ 5.0 million).
The goalkeeper returned to the villa that started XI after missing game week 3 because of the transfer speculation, and he made two excellent stops on Merseyside, negative Jack Grealish (£ 6.8 million) and Michael Keane (£ 4.5 million).
They are now two clean sheets in four games for Villa.
“After we lost 3-0 at home, we didn’t score, but we had opportunities, but we admitted and we were so fragile defensive. We gave three goals against Crystal Palace and it was the first work we did to try today.” – Unai Emery
Youri Tielemans (£ 5.9 million), Mehiwhile, was an injury in the first half.
The Belgian, who started next Lamare Bogarde (£ 4.0 million) in the central midfield, was replaced during the break.
When he was asked about Tielemans’ injury, Emery said:
‘You go out a number of competitions.
“Hopefully we can also recover Kamara and Onana – Barkley too. But today Lamare Bogarde helped us a lot. He has done fantastic work and I am happy for him. Lindelof also played 10 minutes as a midfielder. That is the dedication we need.” – Unai Emery
Grealisk + ndiaye “Fantastic”
Everton certainly had the better chances on Saturday, with 20 shots to seven, but they missed a murderer.
Keane was a constant threat to set pieces and registered four shots on goal, while Beto (£ 5.4 million), not for the first time, plucked various decent opportunities.
As far as Grealisk is concerned, he hit a volley directly to Martinez; Although he did not score, he performed exceptionally well.
The most purchased player of Gameweeke 4 pulled the strings from the left side and created a match-high five chances and picked up 19 penalty box touches.
In fact, slightly less than 60% of the opportunities created by Everton on Saturday stemmed from his side of the field:
Idiman Ndima (£ 6.5 million) In the meantime, a knock and should have had an assist after setting up Beto.
“I thought Jack did it brilliantly. I thought Ili was fantastic in the first half and I thought Jack was also brilliant. I thought they were two fantastic in their balls, their one-V-one situations and showed us a much greater threat than we were before.” – David Moyes on Jack Grealish and Iliman Ndiaye
the law James Tarkowski (£ 5.5 million) Both have picked up the defensive contribution (Defcon) points.
Tarkowski, who orders the defense excellently, is now one of only two defenders – together with Mark Senesi (£ 4.6 million) – to reach the required Defcon threshold in each of his four performances this season.
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