After a treacherous campaign in the Barclays Women’s Super League following a multitude of sky-high expectations before the 2023/24 season commenced, it is safe to say that change is much needed at Aston Villa.

The Villans will be looking to return to the heights set by themselves at the conclusion of the 2022/23 season, and they may have found the right coach that will lead them upwards on the Barclays WSL table in upcoming season.

Robert de Pauw. The Dutchman joins from German side Bayer Leverkusen, and all that is known- but what does he bring to the table in terms of playing style and tactics? In this article, we will look at coaching data and analyse what may change in Birmingham.

The Data

To capture the playing style of de Pauw, we have to look at data. The raw data comes from Opta and the metrics are made by myself. This data tells us how a team/coach is performing on some key playing style indicators:

• Long Balls: balls played from defensive third
• Deep Circulation: passes played from the middle third that are not progressive or forward
• Wing Play: passes from the middle third to the wide areas
• Territory: percentage of final third passes as part of the total passes played by both teams
• Crossing: amount of crosses that end in the box
• High Press: pressing actions in the opposition’s defensive third
• Low Block: passive defensive play in their own defensive third
• Counters: the ability to be direct after recovering the ball in their own half and enter the attacking third

With the use of these metrics we can visualise a data radar chart based on percentiles. This gives us an idea of how good a coach performs in relation to other coaches in a specific timeframe. The following data has been derived from the Frauen-Bundesliga 2023/2024 and the Barclays Women’s Super League 2023/2024.

Aston Villa in 2023/24

As we can observe in the radar chart above, Aston Villa is quite and all-round side, as they score in the average percentile ranks. They score slightly above average for wing play, territory, and in the best 25% for playing in a low block. They score under average for long balls and counters. For a club with Aston Villa’s ambition, they should be a lot higher on crossing, wing play, and territory. If they want to brand themselves as one of the top sides in the league, that would be something that a new manager would be eager to change.

Robert de Pauw’s Leverkusen in 2023/2024

In general, de Pauw’s Leverkusen side scores lower in the all round playing style, but there are more outliers in the style employed by de Pauw. The emphasis is on deep circulation, wing play and high press. He wants to control possession via passing in the middle third, find the wingers, and when out of possession make sure to regain the ball as high up the opponents’ pitch as possible.

There are two lessons you can learn from this playing style data:

• de Pauw’s teams want to press high and gain meaningful chances from that specific tactic.
• They want to be active in their defending and their defenders are asked to engage in activities not only in the defensive third, but all over their own half. This means that playing in a low block is less frequent.

It remains to be seen whether De Pauw’s Aston Villa will emulate what he did at Leverkusen, but I think that he wants to play attacking football and that will both attract fans, and be a joy to watch. That is something the Villans can definitely get behind.

Aston Villa fans should be looking ahead at the new area with great excitement, and expect an exciting style of football to be arriving in Birmingham.