Aston Villa's October evolution: Wingers return!

One of the things I'm most interested to see when Aston Villa come out of the international break is what Unai Emery actually does with the amount of genuine width he now has available to him, because I don't think we've really seen this at any stage of his time at the club. Villa have had players who can operate out wide and Leon Bailey was obviously a natural winger, but we've never really looked at an Emery squad and seen three or four players whose first instinct is to receive the ball wide, attack a full-back and try to make something happen from there.

Alejandro Garnacho, Alisson and Ibrahim Mbaye all give Villa that now and I think it potentially changes quite a lot, even if I'm not completely convinced we're suddenly going to see Emery playing with two traditional wingers every week. If you think about how Villa have generally attacked under him, particularly last season, it has been much narrower than that. John McGinn has played from the right without really being a right winger, Emi Buendia has done similar things from the left and Morgan Rogers obviously operated centrally, so opponents could have a pretty good idea of where Villa wanted their attacking players to end up even if actually stopping it was another matter.

This feels different because Emery can still play that way if he wants to. McGinn isn't suddenly going to disappear from those positions, Manzambi gives him another option and we've seen George Hemmings operating in attacking areas as well, but there is now the possibility of completely changing the picture of a game by putting somebody out there who wants to stay wide and go directly at the opposition. It makes Villa more difficult to prepare for because there are more versions of this team available to Emery than there probably were last season.

Garnacho is obviously going to be a huge part of that conversation because the international break seems to have come at a really good time for him. There is no point pretending his start at Villa has been anything other than disappointing, but two goals in two friendlies at least gives him a bit of momentum and I've gone backwards and forwards on whether I'd start him against Brentford. Part of me thinks you almost have to now because confidence is such a big thing with attacking players and, after waiting for something to happen with Garnacho, Villa finally have something positive to build on.

The other side is that Emery isn't going to look at two goals in friendly matches and suddenly decide everything is sorted. Garnacho still has to show he can do what the manager wants in competitive games and there is now proper competition for those opportunities, which I actually think will be good for him. Alisson was really interesting against Sevilla and the little bit of movement in the build-up to Garnacho's goal was brilliant, but more generally I like the fact that whenever he gets onto the pitch he seems to want to attack somebody immediately.

I've always had the impression Emery really likes Alyyson and I think we probably would have seen considerably more of him already without the little injuries and niggles which have interrupted his progress. Villa have been careful with him and I think that's been the right thing to do because he's still a very young player adapting to a completely different level of football, but if he can stay fit now there should be opportunities. His application seems to be good, he works hard and there is clearly enough ability there for Emery to believe he can develop him into something.

Mbaye gives Villa another version of it again and that is probably the wider point with all of this. Emery doesn't need every one of these players to suddenly become an automatic starter because simply having them changes what he can do during games. Villa can start narrow and introduce width, they can start with a winger on one side and somebody like McGinn on the other, or there might be certain matches where Emery decides he wants to stretch the pitch on both sides and plays two natural wingers together.

I probably think the one-winger option will be what we see most often because it feels much more in keeping with how Emery likes his teams to function, but there will definitely be moments where two of them makes sense, particularly if Villa are chasing a game or come up against a team they think they can really pin back. With so many matches coming during October, we're going to see different combinations anyway and that should tell us quite a lot about what Emery has planned for this next version of the team.

It has actually been a long time since Villa have had this many genuine wingers. You probably have to go back towards the early Dean Smith period and the likes of Anwar El Ghazi and Trezeguet to remember a Villa side where having natural wide players on both sides felt completely normal. Football has changed and Emery certainly isn't going to suddenly revert to an old-fashioned system with two players permanently hugging the touchline, but having the option again is really interesting.

That is what I keep thinking about with this squad. Villa have lost some enormous players and had to change again over the summer, but Emery now has different tools rather than simply trying to find direct replacements for what has gone. The return of genuine wingers might be one of the clearest examples of that and October should give us our first proper indication of how he intends to use them.