Unai Emery chuckled at Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins calling him a “tactical genius” — after the England international’s two second-half goals off the bench away to Chelsea on Saturday stretched the club’s winning run across all competitions to 11 matches.

Considering how often manager Emery is lauded as detail-oriented and tactically excellent, Villa have been an interesting case study either side of half-time in their matches this season.

More often, they have found themselves behind (six games) than ahead (four) at the interval, with eight of their 18 Premier League matches level at that stage. From the restart for the second half, though, only league leaders Arsenal are better than Villa, with Emery to face his previous English employers next at the Emirates Stadium tomorrow (Tuesday).

This pattern was repeated across London at the weekend, as Emery and company turned a half-time deficit into a 2-1 win against Chelsea with 63rd and 84th minute goals.

Emery could call upon four senior international players from the bench at Stamford Bridge in Watkins, Jadon Sancho (both England), Amadou Onana (Belgium), Lucas Digne (France), plus Netherlands Under-21 international Lamare Bogarde.

Emery called his players “mature” and “responsible,”. Villa are the second-oldest team in the league, and, as per the CIES Football Observatory (a research group in Switzerland), the second-most stable — a measure of how long, on average, players have been at a club.

The strength of the connections, especially in contrast to Chelsea’s younger, rotating squad, showed on the day, with Morgan Rogers assisting Watkins for the equaliser. Those two have combined for 37 chances and eight goals in the Premier League since the start of last season.

Saturday’s system, a 4-4-2 (with narrow No 10s) or 4-2-3-1, featuring flying full-backs, is how Villa have started every match since the start of that 2024-25 campaign — with the exception being a one-off 3-4-3 experiment away to Crystal Palace in February this year. They lost that one, 4-1.

Watkins explained Emery identified Chelsea’s overload at the back when Villa played long balls. They set up to build in a 4-2-4, dropping both defensive midfielders, and the west Londoners matched them up, but moved left-winger Alejandro Garnacho narrow near right-sided centre-back Ezri Konsa.

Villa did not take advantage of this enough, and goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez primarily passed left, or launched balls downfield, where Donyell Malen had little joy against centre-backs Trevoh Chalobah and Benoit Badiashile. Emery’s No 10s Rogers, John McGinn and Emiliano Buendia were overrun trying to sweep up second balls.