Aston Villa’s Super Subs: Why Unai Emery Changes Are Vital in Champions League Push

Aston Villa’s substitutes provided yet more joy for Unai Emery this weekend. Can his use of players off the bench be the difference as they look to secure more Champions League football next season?

Aston Villa broke a Premier League record in their 3-0 win over Southampton on Saturday, becoming the first team in the competition’s history to have three different substitutes score in the same match.

With the game goalless at St Mary’s after 66 minutes, Unai Emery decided to refresh his side and introduced both Ollie Watkins and Donyell Malen off the bench in place of Marcus Rashford and Jacob Ramsey.

Thirteen minutes later, both substitutes were on the scoresheet. John McGinn, another player introduced from the bench, completed the scoring in stoppage time, converting the rebound after Marco Asensio‘s penalty was saved.

Only one team in Premier League history has seen more goals scored by substitutes in a single match – Manchester United at Nottingham Forest in their 8-1 rout at the City Ground in February 1999. Unlike Villa, who shared their goals across three subs, United’s four goals that day all came from one man – Ole Gunnar Solskjær.

Villa’s substitutes have played a big part in what looks like a successful follow-up campaign to 2023-24, in which they secured Champions League football for the first time since the Premier League’s inception back in 1992.

They currently sit just a point outside the top five in the Premier League table, a position that would now guarantee them a Champions League spot for a second successive season, and Villa’s recent form should give them confidence of overturning that deficit.

The weekend win over Southampton was their fourth successive victory in the Premier League, and the home game against Newcastle next weekend offers them the opportunity to win five league games in a row for the first time in two years.

In their current four-game winning streak, they have scored nine goals, of which five have come from substitutes, with another assisted by a player introduced from the bench. Those five goals account for half of their seasonal tally (10), with the first five goals scored by Villa substitutes all coming in the opening three months of the season.

Across all competitions, Villa lead the Premier League with 17 goals scored by substitutes in 2024-25. In league matches alone, only Fulham (14) and Bournemouth (12) have scored more than Villa’s 10 goals via subs. Those same two clubs (both 19) are the only sides to have more total goal involvements from substitutes than Villa’s 18.

The departure of Jhon Durán to Saudi side Al-Nassr in January took away one of the Premier League’s most impactful substitutes, the Colombian striker scoring eight of his 12 league goals for Villa since the start of 2023-24 off the bench. But the arrivals of Malen and loanees Rashford and Asensio have allowed Emery to beef up his attacking options in the squad.

Since Malen’s debut for Villa on 26 January, only Ian Maatsen (201) has played more competitive minutes off the bench for Villa than the newly-acquired trio of Malen (149), Rashford (186) and Asensio (200) with those three players contributing six goals and three assists overall in 17 Villa matches.

And both Asensio and Rashford have shown previous qualities as substitutes at the highest level.

Asensio is the top-scoring substitute in UEFA Champions League history with 12 goals off the bench in the competition (four more than any other player), while only eight players have scored more substitute goals than Rashford (13) in the Premier League. Five of those goals have been match-winners, too – one more and he’d lead the all-time rankings for that statistic.

The importance of having reliable goalscoring options off the bench has never been greater.

In the first 30 Premier League seasons, the proportion of goals scored by substitutes (excluding own goals) only got as high as 12% in one campaign (12.8% in 2013-14). Since the move to allow five substitutions from 2022-23 onwards, that figure has consistently stayed above 12%, peaking at 13.3% last season. In 2024-25, the figure stands at 12.9%.

Overall, 118 Premier League goals (excluding own goals) have been scored by substitutes this season – 41 off last season’s record tally of 159 – with 62 games left to play.

For Villa, 14 of their 49 Premier League goals this season (29%) have been scored or assisted by substitutes. (Although it’s 18 goal involvements overall by subs this season for Villa (10 goals, 8 assists), a goal both scored and assisted by a sub obviously can only count as one goal when calculating points won.) Those contributions have earned them 13 points – only Bournemouth (16) have won more points via substitute goal involvements.

To emphasise the attacking intent of Emery’s subs in the Premier League this season, Villa lead the competition metrics for shots (89), non-penalty xG (10.2) and chances created (62) exclusively by players who have come off the bench in 2024-25.

Their attacking strength in depth should help as we reach the final stages of the Premier League season, and Emery knows he can trust his substitutes as Villa push for a top-five finish and back-to-back Champions League qualifications.

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