Three games, no goals: Villa equal a 56-year record nobody wanted

There are bad starts, and then there is whatever Aston Villa are doing. Unai Emery’s side drew 0-0 at promoted Hull on Saturday to complete a hat-trick of blanks: three Premier League games, more than 270 minutes of football, and not one single goal. It is the first time Villa have failed to score in their opening three games in 56 years. For a club that will play Champions League football this season, that is not a slow start. It is a mystery with a kick-off time.

The numbers are almost heroic

Here is the maddening part: Villa are not being outplayed. The expected-goals figures say they are creating perfectly good chances and then treating each one as though it might explode in their hands. New striker Nicolas Jackson, signed to be the answer, has so far been an expensive way of restating the question. Three matches, zero goals, one 56-year record equalled, and a Hull side that kept Villa at arm’s length while staying unbeaten itself. Somewhere a Villa analyst is gazing at a spreadsheet full of lovely process and no product.

What you won’t get on the teamsheet

Emery, to his credit, refuses to panic in public. “We did enough to beat Hull,” he insisted, “the goals will come.” Managers always say the goals will come. The goals, so far, have RSVP’d no. It is the kind of serene confidence that reads as wisdom when it works and denial when it doesn’t, and the scoreboard is currently unhelpful. When your reassurance is “trust me, we’re creating chances,” the supporters have usually already clocked the part where none of them go in.

A Champions League club has played three league games and scored zero goals. The Villa Park programme may soon ship with an apology.

The clock is quietly ticking

None of this is terminal in September. Emery is too good, and Villa too talented, for a drought to last. But the fixture list does not care about xG, and points dropped now are still points dropped, Champions League nights or not. Score early next week and this becomes a funny footnote. Fail to, and “when will Villa score” turns into the only question anyone asks.

So spare a thought for the Villa supporter who has sat through three games and watched his side hit everything except the net. The good news: in front of goal, it literally cannot get worse. The bad news: they said that after game two.