Aston Villa FM24 First Season Save Guide

Welcome to the next episode of the managing Aston Villa in the first season series on FM24.

Before Unai Emery came along Aston Villa were floundering around in mid to lower table. Stevie Gerrard’s reign came to an abrupt halt after a positive start. Now they are pushing the ‘Big 4’ and threatening to get into the Champions League. It’s amazing what a great manager can do for your club.

In this guide we are going to:

• Look at the end of season league performance and individual performances.
• We will look at the tactics which have been used.
• Where the team will go next.

Read on to see how Aston Villa went to war with the Big 4 on FM24!

Aston Villa results on FM24

So this is where we talk about the team performance this season. The main point of this section is to measure how we performed against our supporter and club objectives. This can unveil any fundamental or potential problems within the Aston Villa team on FM24.

First Half Of The Season

As you can see, we started the season with a 9 game winning streak. Not a without loss streak, not 9 draws, it was 9 wins. Then we had two losses in three games and went back to our winning streak for 5 games. This team knows how to win and coincidentally the games we lost were against lower teams.

We smashed all the top teams in the league like Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Man United and Liverpool. I cannot believe how effective this team are at winning games, the other teams were begging for January. As you can see in the table we are clearly top and running away with it, with three games in hand thanks to Europa.

Looking at the win stats you can see we deserve to be top, winning the majority of our games and only losing two. We are the top scorers in the league with Man United and have conceded the third lowest in the league. There are really good indicators that we are doing the right thing and have the right players.

Second Half Of The Season

First thing to note, is that we managed to get a Champions League spot. This gives us access to some of the biggest players in the world and as a result the potential to push on as a better club. A big achievement in this season is the amount of goals we scored, the only team to beat us was Man City. On the other hand, we ended up quite far behind eventual winners Man City.

I am really impressed in how we ended the season with so many wins. We also had 1 draw all season, which is credit to our attacking approach. Defensively we were by far the worst, conceding nearly double what Man City had.

Overall most of the stats agree where we finished in the league, high goals, high wins and a decent goal difference. 71% win rate is a great figure, but the teams around us are elite teams. We need to recruit expensively, but wisely, meaning buying a couple of players a lot of money and quality.

Aston Villa Individual Performances

This is where we discuss the individual player performances. This section here is where we find the strengths and weaknesses on the Aston Villa squad on FM24. These can be important stats in order to uncover top performers and potentially model their success.

First Part of the Season

First things first, we can see that the whole team are pretty much playing over an average rating of 7. This is an incredible feat as ever and shows that we do not have any weaknesses in the first team. This blog is a fairly easy one to write as Aston Villa have been so successful. January will be fun trying to strengthen as we already have a top squad on course to win the league.

Now let’s look at the basic data, the Xg and passing completion. Starting with the Xg the whole team is achieving and exceeding their targets, a nod to the quality in the squad. The only player that is underperforming is Leon Bailey, which ironic as he is really good in real life.

Unfortunately, while looking at passing data most of the team are hitting the criteria of 85% apart from Bailey, Watkins, Zaniolo, Traore and Diaby. Bad news is that Bailey is failing on the KPIs of the team and could find himself sold for a replacement. The common trend here is that all the players are forwards, which means their passing is in dangerous positions. I will need to deep dive this data at the end of the season.

Second Part of the Season

The first thing I noticed is that we have a large number of players that have played over an average of 7. This is one of my favourite stats as it compacts everything into one number, or close to. Also I will admit now, I think Moussa Diaby is best winger in the EPL on FM24. He is simply fantastic, his creativity and goal contribution are second to none in the wide positions.

Moving onto to the Xg rating, Diaby is over by 4-5 points, Ollie Watkins is over by 3-4 points, as well as Traore and Pau Torres beating their targets. Overall it is very impressive and every member of the squad have pulled their weight when it comes to goal scoring.

The pass completion test looks a little wayward. The attacking midfielders and strikers are not connecting their passes which is something we need to look into. As a working assumption I would say as they are playing in the opposition half the risk level is higher.

Aston Villa tactics on FM24

In this section we discuss the tactic we used with Aston Villa in the first season. We tend to use the tactic we developed from day one on FM24 and then discuss any changes we made along the way. We also use this to suggest ideas moving forward for the tactic.

So the most surprising performance from this tactic is that Diaby assisted so many times. The tactic was built to push the ball through for Watkins to get on behind the defence and finish it. As well as that the inside forward would push in to support and create a two forward attack.

The good news is that both of our wingers and striker scored a large number of goals. This team has played really well in a gegenpress tactic and this is down to their fitness levels. They keep going and winning the ball back straight away.

This defence is intriguing, by rights this defence has no right to be finishing in the top 3. There is going to be some thinking about what to do with the defence, but it will be quality over quantity. We are going up against the best teams in the world, so we need to stop the bleeding at the back.

Conclusion

Aston Villa have been a great team to manage on FM24. I have had so much fun with the squad they have available and seen some awesome performances. Unfortunately, like all my teams, I need to look at the defence and tweak it a bit.

The strength of this team is the forward line. Both the wingers and Watkins the striker have got a great relationship and knack for scoring. Building on this is going to be difficult, it will have to be a case of looking at the type of assists.

The weakness for this team is the defence. I do not see strength in depth, and because of the number of games they play you need to have that depth in the team. If you had the injured players available it would be better, but they are out for most of the season.

The opportunity here is two fold, the team is young and talented. Getting them to the Champions League opens the door to better quality players while your young stars and picking up winning experience.

The threat of the team is hard to see. I think there is too much reliance on Watkins even though he is a top quality talent. If anything happens to him then there are no other forwards to take up the reigns. He needs competition to continue being a high performer.

I hope you enjoyed this guide, now go and start your journey with Aston Villa on FM24. Please comment any feedback below.