By 
Aston Villa dominated large patches of the game against AFC Bournemouth but still came away as the losing side.
Follow the writer on Twitter: @Findfoy
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Lamplight looks at whether the game at face value tells a different story to the statistics achieved by the players in it.
On a first viewing, it may look like a certain player had a strong game, or a poor game – but often deeper analysis tells an entirely different tale.
Tom Heaton
Tom Heaton had a relatively strong game, despite putting Aston Villa on the back foot from the off by conceding an early penalty.
Statistical Positive: Tom Heaton faced four shots in the entire game – two of which went into his net. One was a penalty, and the other took a wicked deflection off of Tyrone Mings. The two other saves were saved well by Heaton, which kept Villa in the running for some points.
Statistical Negative: This one has to be the most obvious thing in this entire post. He committed one foul, which put Aston Villa on the back foot as soon as the game had started.
Ahmed Elmohamady
Ahmed Elmohamady was reliable at right-back, although lacked some attacking prowess at times – which is why calls for Frederic Guilbert’s inclusion are growing.
Statistical Positive: Whilst it might not have looked that way, 46% of Ahmed Elmohamady’s crosses found a man in the Bournemouth box – with six of 13 attempts registering. This is a relatively high number of accurate crosses compared to his team-mates.
Statistical Negative: Elmohamady lost the ball ten times in the game, meaning that possession was recycled pretty heavily down the right-hand side. Luckily, only two of these losses were in his own half.
Björn Engels
Björn is doing well to make the faithful fall in love with him alongside Tyrone Mings in defence, and was a behemoth in the Villa defence.
Statistical Positive: Engels was incredibly strong in the duel against Bournemouth. In six defensive duels, he came out on top in all of them, and in 12 aerial duels, he was successful in all but one.
Statistical Negative: This is a small one, as generally Björn Engels had a sublime game. He lost the ball five times in his own half.
Tyrone Mings
Tyrone Mings’ large frame has been a bit of an issue for Aston Villa in their opening Premier League games – with two shots ricocheting off his body and into the net.
Statistical Positive: Much like the Spurs game, Tyrone was an ever-present at the back. He made six interceptions and four clearances, ranking fairly highly across his two games.
Statistical Negative: For a ball playing defender, his passing accuracy suffered. He notched the lowest pass accuracy across the back four, sitting at 82%.
Neil Taylor
Neil Taylor is one of those footballers that just gets his job done -as unspectacular as he might be.
Statistical Positive: Taylor ranked as highly as Tyrone Mings with the amount of interceptions he made – with six across the full 90 minutes.
Statistical Negative: There’s a toss up for Neil’s worst statistic. The fullback was only successful in 33% of his duels, coming away with the ball only three in nine times – that, and the fact that he managed only two crosses into the Bournemouth box – highlighting a dependency on the right-hand-side for Aston Villa.
Douglas Luiz
Douglas Luiz introduced himself to Villa Park with a thunderous goal from thirty or so yards out, but was at fault for Bournemouth’s second goal.
Statistical Positive: Douglas Luiz, as expected, dictated the play for large swathes of the game. He registered a 91% pass accuracy across the entire game. 15 of his 17 forward passes were accurate, whilst any passes back to his defence or goalkeeper all found their man. He also made seven interceptions.
Statistical Negative: Douglas Luiz was wasteful when deep crossing opportunities arose – floating three into the box, but none of them managed to find an Aston Villa player.
John McGinn
John McGinn could have made history this weekend had one of his shots on goal hit the back of the net.
Statistical Positive: McGinn managed six shots on goal – the most across the entirety of the players. Even better is the fact that three of McGinn’s shots were on target.
Statistical Negative: Perhaps John tried to take on too much on Saturday afternoon. Whilst he won all four of the duels he was involved in, he lost the ball 11 times when Aston Villa were on the attack.
Jack Grealish
Aston Villa’s talisman midfielder is still finding his feet back in the Premier League, but looks to be growing game by game.
Statistical Positive: Jack’s beefing up seems to be doing the trick this year, as he’s come out better in a duel more often than not. Against Bournemouth, he registered nine duel wins out of sixteen – sitting at 56%.
Statistical Negative: The midfielder is usually one of the stronger passers of the ball in the Aston Villa side, but struggled with pass accuracy. Only 77% of his passes found a man in claret and blue.
Trézéguet
Trézéguet is another player who has improved over his two games as he looks to be finding his feet in a new league.
Statistical Positive: Trézéguet was one of the creative outlets in the game, and his team-mates could see that. He received the ball 23 times across the entire 90 minutes.
Statistical Negative: The winger’s height let him down in regards to a few long balls towards him. He struggled to win balls aerially, with four attempts resulting in four ball losses.
Anwar El Ghazi
The Dutch winger has looked positively off-the-pace in his first two Premier League outings.
Statistical Positive: Anwar made three successful passes into the opposition box across five attempts. If these would have come off, it might have been a different story for the winger.
Statistical Negative: El Ghazi was caught offside three times during the game. Perhaps an eagerness to prove himself, or just a lack of awareness in regards to Bournemouth’s defensive line.
Wesley
Wesley Moraes looked better in the Bournemouth game compared to the Tottenham Hotspur game – but is still posing questions for fans.
Statistical Positive: Wesley was involved in nine offensive duels across 50 minutes, and he came out on top eight times.
Statistical Negative: The Brazilian forward needs to be more accurate in his passing. He holds the ball well, but only 64% of his fourteen passes met an Aston Villa player. When he’s making so few passes, they need to be worthwhile.
Neither Jota or Keinan Davis had enough impact on the game in their 31 collective minutes on the pitch to provide accurate or fair data on their game.
