A good mix of experience in defence and youthful vigour in attack Villa also have one of the smallest squads in the Premier League and this year were pretty lucky with injuries and consistent with team selection - only 13 players made 10 or more starts in the league.
For me Villa have two of England's most promising youngsters in Ashley Young (originally at Watford) and Gabriel Agbonlahor (a Villa youth product). I also liked the look of Reo-Coker at the U21s last year but haven't seen so much of him at club level - either at West Ham or Villa.
Mellberg is off to Juventus & will be missed although Craig Gardner - another Villa academy product - has done well filling in at right back during the season. He's mainly a midfielder.
For the future:
Zoltan Steiber (Hungarian winger/deep lying forward), Tobias Mikaelsson (Swedish forward), Chris Herd (Australian central midfielder) - all had spells out on loan during the past season. All three are 19 & will be entering their fourth "full-time" season next year so I would expect them either to be shipped out in the summer or to move closer to first team involvement. Mikaelsson was top scorer for the reserves (8 goals in 9 games).
Nathan Delfouneso - just 17 but deemed good enough to be allocated a first team squad number in 07-08. Striker who is also part of the England youth set-up (a year behind the likes of Murphy & Lansbury). A reserve team regular as well as netting ten times for the U18s.
Harry Forrester - another promising English youngster - plays in midfield & was signed from Watford last summer.
James Collins & Andreas Weimann - I haven't read or heard much about either of these players - but Collins scored 22 goals for the U18s (top in the whole league I believe - which runs for 28 games). Weimann - an Austrian signed from Rapid Wien last summer - was second best for Villa - with 14.
By the way Villa were Champions of both the reserve and academy leagues - so pretty impressive at those levels too.
Previous
Index
Next
Flat
Re: Review of the 2007-08 Premier League season
Edit
Reply
Quote
