Aston Villa suffered a heavy defeat at home to Tottenham on Sunday afternoon with a host of Unai Emery’s squad failing to perform during the fixture of great importance, one of which being Leon Bailey.
Not many would have predicted that Aston Villa would lose at home to Tottenham on Sunday afternoon’s critical meeting in the race for the top four however, it was a day to forget for the Villans.
If many didn’t expect to lose, no one would have anticipated that Unai Emery’s side would lose 4-0 at home to the North Londoners, who were simply the better team on the day in the Midlands.
A lot was questioned about the manager’s decision to switch his formation ahead of the blockbuster fixture, a choice that saw the XI struggle significantly to build play as passes were continually misplaced.
One player who particularly struggled against Spurs was Leon Bailey, whose performance was far below the standard many have become accustomed to seeing from him this term.
Leon Bailey had a terrible game against Spurs
Bailey has been one of Villa’s most threatening assets this season, with his role against Spurs supposed to be as dangerous as usual in order to break down the Lilywhites on the right side.
The shift in formation saw the Jamaican move into a central position in support of Ollie Watkins, seeing his performance take a vast dip as the statistics show.
As per Sofascore, Bailey completed only four passes in 69 minutes, recording a 36% passing accuracy rate, as well as losing 71% of his duels and having just 23 touches of the ball.
After Villa went 2-0 down, Emery opted to revert his side back to their usual formation, with any hope of a comeback then extinguished as John McGinn was sent off.
The switch in tactics was detrimental to Leon Bailey’s role
Playing Bailey centrally obliterated the Jamaica international’s chance to cause a threat, as well as leaving the Villans bare in the wide channels where so much of their positivity has spawned from this season.
The 26-year-old averages 1.5 successful dribbles per game for Villa this term in the Premier League due to his dangerous streak out wide on the right and ability to stand the opposition up, an element of his game that was compromised against Spurs.
Bailey failed to attempt any dribbles against the Lilywhites, with his performance likened to his frustrating form seen “two years ago” by the Claret and Blue Podcast host Dan Rolinson.
One thing is for certain, Emery will surely steer away from the idea of moving the Jamaican away from the wide areas in the near future, with his performance against Spurs being one of his worst this campaign.
