Are Villa overreliant on record number of long-range goals?

Aston Villa continues to march under the direction of Unai Emery.

Wolves’ victory was unconvincing. Boubacar Kamara, the midfielder who arrowed a shot into the top corner from 20 yards to settle the game, had the only thing to prove.

Even though talk of an unexpected title fight may seem fantasy at this point, Villa could soon be in the conversation as Arsenal’s closest rivals. It brought them to third place in the Premier League.

In contrast to a difficult start that saw them lose their 12-month unbeaten home record and exit the Carabao Cup before the end of September, they have won seven of their previous eight top-flight games.

The most of any Villa team’s 16 Premier League goals this season have come from outside the box, making nine out of the field.

The most recent in a long-range strike series was Kamara’s blockbuster, which found its top corner.

In order to help Villa rise to the top three, Matty Cash, Emi Buendia, and Morgan Rogers have tapped the net from a distance.

Wolves have not scored in the last seven goals from outside the box, trailing only Arsenal by two.

Villa’s success is not a coincidence for Emery, who meticulously prioritizes detail and demands perfection.

The players are being clinical and shooting very well, but our demand is obviously more options to try to score goals, he said.

“We need to add goals in various ways,” he said.

They are practicing a lot during training, he continued, adding, “And shooting like that.”

In Premier League history, Villa are the only team to have scored more than half of their goals from outside the box at this point.

Are they at risk of overrelying on distant goals, though?

Ollie Watkins came off the bench to score another blank after the longest goal drought of his Villa career, which included 11 consecutive goals.

Donyell Malen, who scored twice against Young Boys on Thursday in the Europa League match, also rarely threatened.

Emery responded, “We are working and analysing everything,” when asked about a reliance on outside the box goals. We discussed it, of course.

We needed goals last year. With goals]difference], we fell short of the top five. I’m always concerned about something or something that needs to be improved.

We are attempting to identify areas where we have been weak or where we can clearly improve, even when we are winning, according to our demands.

We aren’t scoring many goals, they say. We are now getting the balance between competing. We are keeping clean sheets while maintaining our defensive strength. We want to get goals and get numbers for each.

Kamara scored the only other Premier League goal for Villa in his 81 appearance.