Aston Villa’s Dynamic Duo of Albert Adomah & Jonathan Kodjia

Jonathan Kodjia is good at football.

Albert Adomah is also good at football (and dancing).

But the other day while watching a match I got to thinking — boy they have a real understanding on how to play together. And they both seem to play better — while they are both on the pitch.

So I pulled the match stats and separated them into matches with neither of them, one of them, and both of them — and the stats seems to back the hypothesis — though I’m not going to pull out SPSS and giving you the statistical significance or anything.

Methodology

I’m only looking at matches from the Steve Bruce Era. Kodjia and Adomah came in at the end of the transfer window under Di Matteo but the era didn’t last long. The numbers have one less variable if we just do the Bruce Era. For those that are curious — the two in question were part of the squad for six matches (5 draws and a loss; Kodjia playing all of them; Adomah three of them; No goals or assists for either.)

Qualified playing time means either starting or entering the match before 80 mins as a sub. One exception: April 29 — Kodjia started, Adomah came on in the 72nd minute FOR Kodjia so I’m counting that as a “they didn’t play together” match.

Only EFL Championship League Matches were used. Goals/Assists source.

Results

Neither Kodjia nor Adomah played

• 5 matches: 1 win, 3 draws, 1 loss. (1.2 average points per match)
• 7 total goals scored

Either Kodjia or Adomah play — but not together.

• 10 matches: 1 win, 3 draws, 6 losses. (0.6 average points per match)
• 6 total goals scored.
• Kodjia & Adomah: 3 goals, zero assists

Both Kodjia and Adomah play

• 33 matches: 19 wins, 5 draws, 9 losses. (1.88 average points per match)
• 41 total goals scored.
• Kodjia & Adomah: 25 goals, 13 assists
• 8 link-ups between the two. 2016/17 all 6 assists from supplied by Adomah to Kodjia. So far this year both were Kodjia to Adomah.

Conclusions

It is nice to know that my hunch was borne out by the numbers. It certainly isn’t earth shattering that when two of Villa’s best players are on the pitch — the team performs better. But the visual chemistry between the two is no mirage.

One big warning sign. Steve Bruce (as hopefully the start of the season taught him) needs to come up with a way for Aston Villa to playing without both of these players. The drop off is massive. And trying to force the system to work anyway — isn’t helpful and I would guess is part of the reason that the numbers are worse with one of the players on without the other (yes, yes the same size is very small).

So now you have some fun numbers to show off to your friends at the bar/pub/train/stand.