Unai Emery explains the ‘vital’ tactical change behind Aston Villa’s historic 6-1 win over Brighton

Unai Emery has unveiled the vital, purposeful adjustment he made to his game plan ahead of Aston Villa’s 6-1 demolition job of Brighton & Hove Albion.

The Villans head coach decided on a subtle change to try and unlock Brighton’s defence and it worked better than he could’ve ever imagined.

Ollie Watkins netted a hat-trick and notched an assist on a dream day as Villa took advantage of the Seagulls’ defensive frailties and mistakes.

One of the key reasons Watkins was able to become such a threat was Emery steering away from Brighton’s usual success with ground battles, instead going long and wide to get beyond.

“Our game plan was to try to avoid duels, try to avoid the defence against us, finding the players we can fight against them man-to-man, two against two,” Emery explained post-match.

“When they were doing man-to-man on the pitch we tried to avoid the first build-up, playing with the players they have close to our goalkeeper and playing over, faster than the other players.

“They were the strikers, they were John McGinn, Nicolo Zaniolo. We did fantastic with Ollie Watkins fighting with the defence and Moussa Diaby. Then we needed to try to keep ball possession and build.”

That’s exactly what the men in claret and blue did, though it didn’t exactly take long for the attacks to “build” as Villa were often in on goal at the click of a finger.

Watkins and Diaby linked up excellently on the transition with at least one of the pair directly involved in every single one of the six goals scored.

Emery’s tactical versatility is one of his biggest talents and it really showed as Villa leapfrogged Brighton to soar into the Premier League top five.