Aston Villa moved one step closer to returning to the Premier League by beating Midlands rivals West Bromwich Albion on penalties at the Hawthorns to advance into the Championship play-off final. This tactical analysis uses statistics to look at the tactical trends of the game. The focus is on West Bromwich Albions attacking setup, Aston Villas midfield mechanisms and how West Brom looked to deal with the positioning of Jack Grealish.
Lineups
West Bromwich Albion started in a 5-4-1 which turned into a 3-4-3 in attack as Matt Phillips and Jacob Murphy moved inside either side of Jay Rodriguez. Aston Villa started in a 4-3-3 where Conor Hourihane came into midfield instead of the more defensive-minded Glenn Whelan.
As the analysis below will show, Aston Villa used very interesting mechanisms in the make-up of their midfield three to get star man Grealish, in particular, into dangerous positions.
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