Dan Rolinson has hailed Aaron Danks for switching Ollie Watkins and Leon Bailey in Aston Villa’s latest outing.
Villa kicked off their post-Steven Gerrard regime in fine fashion with a convincing 4-0 win in the Premier League on Sunday.
It ended a four-game winless run for the west Midlanders who moved up to 14th in the table with just their third victory of the campaign.
Caretaker boss Danks made some big selection decisions including dropping captain John McGinn and switching to a 4-2-3-1 formation.
Speaking on the Claret and Blue podcast Rolinson also pointed out an astute tactical tweak.
He said: “I also thought it was interesting that when Ollie Watkins has played wide for us it’s been off the left and Bailey’s always played on the right-hand side.
“Yet again Aaron Danks comes in and goes actually you know what Bailey on the left, Ollie Watkins on the right. For the most part, that’s what it was and again they looked in their most effective positions on those sides.
“You just wonder is that their preferred position or Aaron Danks thinking I need to try something different or did Steven Gerrard even bother to find out whether they preferred to play on the opposite side because again it just seems like such a basic thing.
“Whenever those two did play wide for Gerrard they played on opposite sides to the way Aaron Danks has put them out and now we’re sat there going that’s Leon Bailey’s best performance in an Aston Villa shirt. He was playing on the wrong side the whole time, that’s why.”
TIF Thoughts on Rolinson’s comments…
Was Gerrard given enough time at Villa?
Yes
No
Indeed since moving to Villa Park Watkins has at times been used on the left while predominantly playing through the middle.
Bailey meanwhile, has found himself on the right despite favouring the opposite flank while at Bayer Leverkusen.
The Jamaican was directly involved in 41 goals in 90 appearances on the left in the Bundesliga and seem to relish the chance to play in a similar role against Brentford.
He played two key passes and created one big chance (SofaScore) while Watkins also thrived on the other side having five shots on target, missing three big chances, hitting the woodwork once and scoring one goal.
It was another contributing factor to a much better display on the day for the Villans and it will be interesting to see how they will line up for the next game.