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 Englands 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 leagues best attacking midfielders.
If she keeps her excellent run of form going and continues on her current path, it wouldnt 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 Blindkildes 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 Blindkildes role in Aston Villas tactics.
Blindkildes role at Aston Villa
Indeed, Blindkilde hasnt 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 Blindkildes characteristics.
In this regard, turning Blindkilde into a central midfielder wouldnt 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 arent able to defend well.
Being a central midfielder fits Blindkildes 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 Blindkildes 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 Blindkildes profile, making her a more valuable player as this can be considered a key role nowadays, especially if executed intelligently and according to the teams 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.
Blindkildes 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 Blindkildes 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.
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