Villa ‘must be more clinical’ as penalty problem grows

Aston Villa may have addressed the penalty issues that overshadowed the start of the season, but they still haven’t fixed it.

It has actually gotten worse.

A five-game winning streak in all competitions was ended by a 2-1 defeat at Go Ahead Eagles on Thursday in the Europa League, but Emiliano Buendia’s 79th-minute penalty may have prevented the outcome.

Instead, the hosts held on for a famous come-from-behind victory by crashing his effort over the crossbar.

After Ollie Watkins missed against Bologna last month, Villa received their sixth missed penalty in the previous 12 months, and it was their second in Europe this year.

Unai Emery’s side also lost to Brentford on penalties in the Carabao Cup, which was unsurprising.

Villa haven’t converted any penalties since the start of the previous season, which is six more than any other Premier League team in any other league game. Arsenal and Manchester City share four goals with both teams, respectively.

Since returning in 2023-24, they have now missed four of their five penalties in Europe, with the majority of those misses occurring in all three major competitions.

Evann Guessand gave Villa the lead in the fourth minute, but they squandered four chances just before halftime.

Buendia scored the winning goal at Tottenham on Sunday, but he was unable to add to his impressive recent form.

According to Michail Antonio on TNT Sports, “Buendia has been playing unbelievableally, he got the goal.”

He found a lot of through-ball passes today, and he was very creative. I believe it’s a goal to see him step up. Although it’s disappointing to see [the miss], they must hit it head on and continue to advance.

Emery appears to be doing just that when he calmly inquired about Villa’s penalty issues following the game.

Buendia was given responsibility for the incident today, which was unusual for him to have good numbers-shooting penalties.

“Of course, there is a possibility, and we will try to be more clinical in the penalty shoot than we have been during the previous ones.”

“Our snobs are clear,” he says. [Jadon] Sancho, John McGinn, and Morgan [Rogers], as well as Buendia, can shoot penalties.

Emiliano can obviously repeat, but the idea is to try to be so considerate of the decision and of the potential scorers.

Sancho, a loanee from Manchester United, has the best experience with penalties, out of the other options Emery has mentioned.

However, in February 2021, he was a senior club player for Borussia Dortmund, where he had three of his three successful penalties.

One of the game’s most highly regarded set-piece coaches, Austin MacPhee, may be in charge of resolving Villa’s issue.