Hello there. Last time I wrote I was aghast at the Villa's policy with regard to the shirt sponsors and also the new logo. Now it's the turn of worry about the lack of young players coming through from the Academy, despite several being lauded as highly promising.
The recent signing of Rico Richards - another example of poaching from neighbours Albion - makes me think back to all the other players snatched from other clubs, one notable player being Louie Barry from Albion via Barcelona, at the time rated highly and now at the age of 20 you'd expect to be pushing for the first team. Surely he showed his credentials a couple of years ago against Liverpool when the Villa were forced to field the youth team in an FA Cup match. He scored a plum goal as I remember.Others that had already shown their credentials have included Cameron Archer and Philogen-Bidace who both showed up well against Chelsea in the League Cup two seasons back.
There are countless other youngsters who have been highly talked of, such as Aaron Ramsey, the younger brother of Jacob, and also Tim Iroegbunam, another 20-year-old.
Do you remember that time when the young Stephan Moore was supposed to have outclassed Wayne Rooney in the FA Youth Cup Final of 2002? And his brother Luke was supposed to be better, but even though he scored a league hat-trick in 2005-06 (five goals in 3 matches in fact) the encouragement factor at Villa Park seems to have been nil during the 2000s for those trying to break through. Is it really any better now when we see only Jacob Ramsey in today's first team as a product of the much-vaunted Academy?
I do admire the transformation that Emery has brought to the playing method at Villa Park, but to me, it's so very sad that the names littered around the ground these days have become increasingly foreign sounding, from the top of the club to the first team.
What hope is there for England's footballing future if all the big clubs choose (have chosen) to 'go foreign' with the exception of very, very few British players. The problem seems to be increasing.
Though Dean Smith did not achieve great success during his tenure at Villa Park, I liked his model and, indeed, showed that he was on the way in the 2020-21 season when, after that memorable 7-2 drubbing of Liverpool, the Villa flirted in the top-6 for a few weeks and for much of the season were in 9th place before finishing 11th, partly due to the over-reliance on Grealish who was injured a lot during the second half of the season. But this was also a time when Covid was still casting its mawkish spell. Dean was working under some stress yet he always seemed to learn from whatever situations were presented to him to solve.
Over-aspiration caused Villa's top brass to dispose of Dean in favour of Gerrard after he'd unfortunately lost his main coaching team and also Grealish, despite grabbing a great win at Man U not long before.
Yes, we now do seem to be getting somewhere at VP, but at what cost? I hope we don't rue the day when British blood is squeezed out of the game. Thank goodness for the improved performances of Mings, Ramsey and McGinn this season, otherwise I'm not sure we'd be seeing any British players in the first team in season 2023-24.
Let's see those Academy players being given a better chance. If they turn out well (and why shouldn't they?), that would be a lower-cost investment surely? Or are the Villa using the Academy principally to make money from sales?
UTV!
