Hull 0-0 Aston Villa: 73% of the ball, one shot on target

Aston Villa had 73.5% of the ball at the MKM Stadium on Saturday evening. They took thirteen shots. One of them was on target. The match finished 0-0 and Villa have still not scored a goal this season.

Hull City, with 26.5% of the possession and eleven attempts, took a point and a third consecutive clean sheet. Three matches into their return to the Premier League they have not conceded a goal, and they are third.

The number that decides the match

One shot on target from thirteen attempts, with almost three quarters of the ball, is close to the worst attacking return possible from a position of that much control. Hull, with a quarter of the possession, managed four on target from eleven.

It is the second week running Villa have produced a figure like this. Against Arsenal they had seven shots and none on target. Across two matches that is twenty attempts and one save forced, from a side that has had a majority of the ball in both.

They committed five fouls, the fewest of any side in the round. This was not a scrappy afternoon or a physical battle they lost; it was ninety minutes of Villa passing the ball around a defence that never looked like breaking.

Hull have not conceded all season

Three matches, no goals against. Hull beat Manchester United 2-0 on the opening weekend, won 1-0 at Coventry with 31.3% of the ball, and have now held Villa to nothing while seeing 26.5% of it.

That is a coherent method and it has been tested against three different kinds of opponent: a side that wanted to attack them, a promoted side that dominated possession, and an established club desperate for a first goal. It has held every time.

Seven points from three matches puts them third, two behind Manchester City and Arsenal and one clear of Chelsea. For a promoted club that is an exceptional return, and it has been built almost entirely on the defensive side of the game — three goals scored, none conceded.

The obvious caution is that a team playing this way needs its clean sheets, because it is not going to outscore anyone. Three goals in three matches is the joint-lowest total of any club above fifteenth.

Villa have played 270 minutes and not scored

Beaten 4-0 at Brighton, beaten 1-0 at home by Arsenal, and now a goalless draw at a promoted club. One point, no goals, minus five, seventeenth.

The shape of it has changed, at least. Against Brighton they were overrun. Against Arsenal they had 39.2% of the ball. Here they had 73.5% and controlled the match entirely without ever threatening to win it, which is a different problem from the one they had a fortnight ago and arguably a more soluble one.

But three matches without a goal, for a club of Villa’s recent standing, is the story of their season so far and it will remain so until somebody scores. The point at the MKM is their first of the campaign and it came without a shot the goalkeeper had to properly deal with.

How Hull are doing it

Twenty-six per cent of the ball and four shots on target from eleven attempts is a more productive afternoon than Villa’s thirteen attempts and one. Hull are not simply defending; they are picking their moments and getting shots away when they come.

Across three matches they have had 31.3% of the possession at Coventry, 26.5% here, and a minority of it against Manchester United. Three matches, three times with less of the ball than the opposition, seven points. That is a deliberate way of playing rather than a side hanging on.

The concern is volume at the other end. Three goals in three matches, and one of those matches produced two of them. If the clean sheets stop before the scoring starts, seven points from three becomes a much more ordinary return very quickly.

For now they are third, they have not conceded, and they have taken points off Manchester United and Aston Villa in the space of a fortnight. Whatever happens next, that is already a better start than most promoted clubs manage in a season.

Two clubs going in opposite directions

The table after three rounds has Hull City third and Aston Villa seventeenth. It is the sort of line that looks absurd in September and is entirely explicable: Hull have conceded nothing and Villa have scored nothing, and everything else follows from those two facts.

Neither will hold. Hull will concede — everybody does — and Villa will score. What is worth watching is what happens on the day each of those things stops being true, because both of these seasons are currently resting on a single extreme number.

You can play the rest of it out on the Premier League simulator on this site, with the real remaining fixtures and the table exactly as it stands this morning.