Even before this season began, the Aston Villa players had noticed something different about preparation. The management staff have a private Instagram account that the squad all follow, and it used to be filled with tactical ideas and clips from training. That was at least until this summer, and the departure of Michael Beale.
Since then, the posts have been a lot less frequent. A connected criticism has been that Villa’s tactical set-up is a lot less sophisticated. It may be unfair, perhaps even premature, but it does speak to the idea that it was Beale who did the team shape and Steven Gerrard who did everything around it.
