Laura Blindkilde is a promising English attacking midfielder who plays at Aston Villa Women in the WSL and has already been a valuable player for England’s U17s and U19s. She started her career at Birmingham City in 2019 before moving to Aston Villa in 2021. Blindkilde has been putting on some convincing performances lately and is expected to continue her development journey in a way that would allow her to challenge the league’s best attacking midfielders.
If she keeps her excellent run of form going and continues on her current path, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Blindkilde move to one of the bigger teams in the WSL, such as Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City, or Manchester United — or even head to a noteworthy club abroad.
In this tactical analysis and scout report, we will explore what is so promising in Blindkilde’s performances, break down her key traits and what she needs to work on to shine even further and attract the interest of bigger clubs while supporting Aston Villa in their bid to achieve better results than last season. The analysis will be conducted using footage and statistics while focusing on Blindkilde’s role in Aston Villa’s tactics.
Blindkilde’s role at Aston Villa
Indeed, Blindkilde hasn’t been able to feature consistently for an extended period and have a significant impact on the team. Yet, she has made sure to help her side with convincing performances whenever she has been given the chance to play.
It is also valid that Blindkilde plays naturally as an advanced playmaker. Nevertheless, she has been used as a right winger in a 4-3-3 formation at times and as a central midfielder on other occasions. What is positively surprising with Blindkilde is that she holds some convincing defensive statistics, such as winning 68.4% of her defensive duels.
This means that Blindkilde can be an excellent central midfielder in the future if she gets the chance to play in this position more often, especially if she finds no possibility to challenge for the advanced playmaker role. Such a position would limit her attacking contribution a little bit and oblige her to have more defensive roles in midfield, yet it still suits Blindkilde’s characteristics.
In this regard, turning Blindkilde into a central midfielder wouldn’t be a bad decision for Aston Villa because she does not fear physical defensive challenges or duels and often uses duels with such defensive tasks with total concentration and determination, unlike some of the attacking players out there who prefer to economise their energy for attack or those who simply aren’t able to defend well.
Being a central midfielder fits Blindkilde’s characteristics well as she can have both playmaking and defending roles when interpreting such a position, even though such a position would mean that Blindkilde should have to run longer distances than an advanced playmaker.
Becoming a defensive midfielder, however, would not be Blindkilde’s most suitable position mainly because it would undermine her playmaking and passing traits and restrict her to more defensive roles. Although she can be a useful defensive midfielder, it would be better to use her as a central or advanced midfielder in order to allow her to participate in the playmaking process, join the attack and provide passes towards the box while making interceptions and having defensive duels at the same time.
Blindkilde has been very dangerous whenever used as a right winger, too, as she often helps with assists or key passes from the wing, knowing that her long passing quality can be considered very good and potentially even get to a world-class standard if she keeps working on it.
In addition, already being a reliable set-piece taker adds a lot to Blindkilde’s profile, making her a more valuable player as this can be considered a key role nowadays, especially if executed intelligently and according to the team’s plans.
With the lack of number 10 players nowadays, Blindkilde can exploit this opportunity and work harder to become a confirmed advanced playmaker. She already has what it takes to become one of the best in England if she gets the required playing time to gain more experience and showcase her talent.
Blindkilde’s playmaking abilities
As we saw above in the heatmap, Blindkilde usually leans towards the right wing when in possession, as she is often instructed to play as a right winger or as a right midfielder. This tendency of attacking from the right wing allowed Blindkilde to rely on crosses more often to serve forwards, as this would be the best option to go for when playing on the right wing when you are a right-footed player like Blindkilde.
The quality of her crosses can be considered excellent because she executes them with the correct technique and usually creates danger with such accurate long passes. Her passing accuracy reaches 81.2% overall, and her long passing accuracy equals 48% at the moment. This picture highlights a perfect example of Blindkilde’s crossing quality and shows that the English player can be a valuable source of goals for her teams using key crosses like the one shown below.
Having the necessary vision and tactical awareness is fundamental for a player like Blindkilde, as this excellent vision allows her to pass the ball more accurately and find the best possible passing option quickly. In contrast, tactical awareness is critical to knowing when and where to move without the ball.
The following picture shows an example of both aspects in a counterattack initiated by Blindkilde, who provided a through pass to her teammate at the back of the defensive line, which was very advanced. Blindkilde knew that this through pass would allow her teammate to be against one defender at maximum and to have a big chance to get past her and find herself facing the goalkeeper.
Nevertheless, she did not leave her teammate alone and preferred to run at full speed to provide a passing option and help her teammate have more choices in the final third. In the end, Blindkilde received a pass from her teammate and could score from a goal action that she started.
Blindkilde can also be crucial when inside the final third and not on the wings. This position allows her to showcase her short passes more often and impressively, as she usually succeeds in surprising her opponents with quick yet key short passes, creating a lot of danger and breaking defensive lines.
The following picture shows an excellent key pass executed between two opponents while breaking a defensive line to reach its required destination. This pass was more impressive because it was also executed using the left foot.
Shooting and goalscoring
Blindkilde hasn’t been able to score a lot of goals with Aston Villa in the WSL yet. However, she has the potential to score many goals soon, especially if she works on certain aspects, knowing that she previously scored numerous goals with the academy team. Blindkilde shoots on target with a 47.2% rate, which is not a bad average, especially for a midfielder and not a striker.
Blindkilde proved that she can shoot with power and accuracy simultaneously. However, being instructed to aim at shooting from distance more often would surely help her have more confidence in her ability to score from distance more often and use this skill in her favour. The following example shows a beautiful goal scored by Blindkilde with the academy team. It was a shot from outside the box executed with power while changing its direction with a surprising curve to find the net.
Having the ability to shoot from such a distance is a quality that should be enhanced and worked on with the coaching staff to be used more often. Moreover, using Blindkilde as an advanced playmaker would be an excellent choice to put her in such positions more often since she can be extremely dangerous at the edge of the box.
In addition, Blindkilde can also shoot from distance using her left foot. However, she needs to use it more often to surprise opponents and work harder on shooting with more power to be more useful in shooting. Working on shooting with more power can also help Blindkilde be more dangerous regarding set pieces and allow her to be more unpredictable from different distances.
Furthermore, Blindkilde can shoot from other angles and score goals more often. We learned from the footage existing on her shooting abilities that she doesn’t aim at shooting a lot and often goes for the cross or the pass, which limits her goalscoring rates. Although this means that Blindkilde is a team player who usually wants to serve her teammates and create goalscoring chances for them, it also means that Blindkilde needs to have more confidence in her shooting abilities as she needs to have the support and encouragement of her head coach to shoot more often, exploit this trait and develop it even further.
Also, getting more opportunities in terms of set-pieces in critical areas can represent a big chance for Blindkilde to be a more dangerous player and score goals more often. Nevertheless, training on skillfully executing these free-kicks is always necessary to guarantee power, precision and consistency.
Overall, Blindkilde has the potential to score many goals this season if she focuses a bit further on shooting from a distance and on scoring in general, knowing that being a little bit self-centred at times and in some situations, is never a bad idea, especially when the player has the abilities needed to score.
Conclusion
Laure Blindkilde can be considered England’s most talented and rising midfield player at the moment as she has a lot of potential and is expected to prove that she has the abilities needed to deserve a starting spot at Aston Villa and why not at an even bigger team soon.
At the same time, she will have to improve some aspects of her game to develop even further and convince the coaching staff. These improvements are mainly related to shooting from distance more often, adding more power to her shots while not neglecting accuracy and providing more key passes per match.
This being said, it should be added that Blindkilde moves a lot without the ball, has excellent vision and a tactical awareness of her surroundings and can be good enough in defending when used as a central midfielder.
We can also argue that Blindkilde’s best possible role would be the advanced playmaker one because her traits fit this position perfectly, especially if she keeps improving her performances.
