“I’m a striker,” joked Youri Tielemans as he sat down in front of the media.
It was in the autumn of last year and Aston Villa were playing in the group phase of the Europa Conference League, on their way to its semi-finals. As is match protocol, a player was required to be put up for a pre-game interview. On this occasion, it was supposed to be Ollie Watkins. But as dictaphones went down on the table and journalists prepared to ask Villa’s England international front man their questions, in walked Tielemans.
The now-27-year-old midfielder was a last-minute replacement and insisted, with levity, that all those queries about goalscoring feats and forward play intended for Watkins could be put to him instead. To some extent, he was right, given his remit had turned more adventurous around then.
Tielemans was shaking off the rust after a slow start to his Villa career following a summer free-agent move from relegated Leicester City. He was yet to start a Premier League match for Villa at the time — that did not come until the November — and in those first few Conference League fixtures he was struggling to cope with manager Unai Emery’s high-intensity demands.
Although it was still early days, concerns that had existed at his previous club felt telling.
Within footballing circles, there was a growing consensus that Tielemans’ athleticism — or lack thereof — was an increasing problem. The Belgium international had looked leggy in Leicester’s midfield three, unable to cover large spaces in a dysfunctional team doomed to drop into the EFL and playing as a box-to-box No 8 left him struggling to track opposition runners from deep.
As his Leicester contract ran down and free agency last summer beckoned, interest in him from elite clubs wasn’t truly forthcoming. Perhaps it was a good thing, considering Tielemans’ physical condition is dependent — more than most — on how regularly he plays and helps to mask his athletic shortcomings.
But he joined Villa in the end, and so began a stylistic transformation. Emery had gone against the grain, crafting Tielemans into a progressive No 10 and coaching the nuances of pressing from the front and, operating between the lines, connecting his team’s midfielders and forwards.
“The message was to come inside, to try and create overloads in midfield,” Tielemans explained to reporters that day. “That’s more of the tactical plan. The manager is trying to get me inside the middle of the pitch to create an overload.”
“He (Tielemans) is very honest, and he knows at the beginning he wasn’t playing good,” Emery said last season. “The adaptation in another position is a lot more difficult. But he is working every day trying to understand everything. With his quality and his high commitment, it is easier.”
By the October, the more intangible aspects of integrating into a new system had clicked. The 4-1 Conference League victory away at AZ Alkmaar of the Netherlands at the end of that month was seen to be the turning point, with the Belgian pressing effectively, scoring one goal himself and playing a key role in two of the others.
“We’ve had so many meetings,” said Tielemans, with his customary gentle smile. “It was just about adapting to his (Emery’s) system. His playing style is all with the ball, even taking more time in possession. The more you play in this team, the better you understand every position. I know I’ve got it in the locker to play higher up (the pitch) or as a central midfielder.
“My confidence had always been there. It was more so a case of having that reference game, like against AZ, to have a really good performance and then build on that.”
Gradually, Tielemans became an influential cog in Emery’s overarching style, which is designed for press-resistant midfielders to play cutting passes centrally. Over the next few months, he arguably became the best exponent of his manager’s game.
Only Clement Lenglet and Boubacar Kamara were more involved in Villa’s build-up play than Tielemans, who demonstrated a propensity to receive the ball in tight areas, on the half-turn and evade pressure — the graphic below highlights Villa’s players’ involvement in attacking sequences per 90 minutes in the Premier League last season.
While he was often not the player to make the final pass or take the shot, he was heavily involved along the chain of an attacking sequence. Interestingly, Tielemans made the most progressive passes, per 90, last season of any Villa player.
Fifteen of his 46 appearances in that debut season came in one of the side’s two No 10 roles, having played the position as few as 12 times across his four and a half years with Leicester.
That number would have been larger had it not been for Kamara’s season-ending knee injury in February, which caused Emery, short of deep-lying midfielders, to restore Tielemans to the position. Still, it was striking that he initially opted to put John McGinn next to Douglas Luiz, rather than the Belgian.
Quite simply, Tielemans became far better conditioned and more robust in his play out of possession. He would serve as a pressing trigger when dovetailing with Watkins up front, operating as a second forward in a 4-4-2 shape when Villa didn’t have the ball.
Using “true” tackles — a metric that combines tackles won, tackles lost, and fouls committed while attempting a tackle — and “true” interceptions data — a combination of interceptions and blocked passes — we can see how frequently a player looks to make defensive actions for every 1,000 touches of the ball by the opposition.
Only Kamara was more active out of possession last season, with Tielemans averaging 9.2 ball recoveries per game.
Tielemans’ defensive diligence has reinstalled faith in his ability to operate from deep. Partly explained by Kamara’s continuing absence but also, this season, Douglas Luiz’s sale to Juventus of Italy, Emery required a midfielder, as part of a rewired build-up system, to receive the ball from deep and progress play up to the No 10s, in turn breaking the opposition press.
Although, again, it’s early days, Tielemans has been among Villa’s standout performers in the three games so far, striking up a partnership with international team-mate Amadou Onana following his summer arrival from Everton.
“Youri has been around for ages, he helps me and makes certain things easier for me,” said Onana. “On the pitch and off the pitch, we understand each other very well. You can see it when we play next to each other.”
Tielemans has had more touches than any other Villa player this season (195) and completed 10 progressive passes per The Athletic’s definition — a pass that moves the ball at least 25 per cent closer to the centre of the opposition goal — which is four more than any other team-mate. His return to a deeper role, now with a greater understanding both defensively and of Emery’s distinctive on-the-ball structure, demonstrates a more accomplished, well-rounded player.
Villa’s pass network from the 2-1 away win against West Ham United on the season’s opening weekend shows his importance as a vehicle in progressing the team upfield.
Similarly to the game against Arsenal the following Saturday, Tielemans received a high volume of passes from deep before moving the ball to Morgan Rogers, who is Villa’s most dangerous player on transition.
Tielemans is no longer a striker; he never really was one. Rather, Emery deployed him in more advanced areas to sharpen his decision-making, get him to make impactful contributions — seven assists last season across all competitions — and grow his defensive awareness.
He has now reached a point where he is among Villa’s most crucial performers, his skill set chiming perfectly with what his manager’s well-oiled system desires.
(Top photo: Stephen White – CameraSport via Getty Images)
