Aston Villa News 24/7No one should be surprised that Aston Villa have been able to name their squad under the new “home grown” rules well ahead of today’s deadline as it was as straight forward as it can be. I took a look at the squad back in July and listed 23 players who would have to be named under the new rules. Since then, James Milner and Nicky Shorey left, Stephen Ireland joined, so here’s the 22 player who were left and named today:-
Goalkeepers: Brad Friedel, Brad Guzan.
Defenders: James Collins, Carlos Cuellar, Curtis Davies, Habib Beye, Richard Dunne, Eric Lichaj, Stephen Warnock, Luke Young.
Midfielders: Stewart Downing, Jonathan Hogg, Stephen Ireland, Isaiah Osbourne, Stiliyan Petrov, Nigel Reo-Coker, Moustapha Salifou, Steve Sidwell, Ashley Young.
Strikers: Gabriel Agbonlahor, John Carew, Emile Heskey.
I make that 15 home grown and 7 non-home grown players, but I’m on the fence about whether Lichaj is or isn’t home grown. I think he probably is, but either way, it’s no big deal for us.
Of course, we can use as many of the under 21s as we like, they do not have to be named in the squad. I listed 12 players in July that we might call on (the first three being established first team members now): Marc Albrighton, Nathan Delfouneso, Fabian Delph, Andreas Weimann, Elliot Parish, Shane Lowry, Barry Bannan, Ciaran Clark, Nathan Baker, Chris Herd, James Collins, Harry Forrester.
So that’s a total of 34 players I’ve named here, but we’re highly unlikely to see the likes of Nathan Baker, Chris Herd or James Collins (striker), let along Harry Forrester, who I can’t honestly say why I’ve even included. Seems a bit arbitrary, but I’m sure I had my reasons at the time.
If you’re worried about numbers, you probably don’t need to be, here’s the number of players we’ve used in the Premiership over the last three seasons:-
- 2009/10 – 23
- 2008/09 – 21
- 2007/08 – 22
As we know, outside of a core group, there were many players who didn’t actually see much time on the pitch, so there’s plenty of scope for rotation.
We’ll be fine.
You might also like...
10 Comments to “Villa Among First To Name 25 Man Premier League Squad”
Leave a Reply
Lets Pray Warnock doesn’t get injured… real lack of leftback cover…
that’s true.
i’m not sure where Lowry’s been lately, i’d have to assume he’s injured. lichaj’s looked better than beye covering there, but he got injured last night in hyde and it didn’t sound too clever tbh.
it’s a pity that we don’t have any LB cover among all those centre halves.
correction on lowry, he was on the bench in vienna.
oh, we could always go 3-5-2!!
Luke young I guess can play leftback….or….
Do you know have inside knowledge on the next villa manager…. The return of Brian little
Stupid Phone, what I mean’t was….
Luke Young I guess can play leftback….or….
Is the 3-5-2 reference a clue to the new Villa manager? Do you have inside knowledge on the next villa manager…. The return of Brian little
there you go!! don’t know why i forgot about luke young at LB, that’s where he got most of his time last season of course.
it’s part of the puzzle of being a manager though. clearly shorey wasn’t happy just to be a back up, his relationship with MON may have a played a part, but he went out on loan twice last season and was always the most likely to move on this summer.
do you play him enough to keep him happy and at the club, or make do with lesser back up options like luke young, lichaj, beye and lowry? there’s the wages too of course.
and no, nothing in the 3-5-2 suggestion!!
I guess Downing could do a job at Left back as well but the squad, when you don’t add the youngsters looks weak, especially up front… Without Agbonlahor will Heskey and Carew get enough goals?
I’m not trying to be negative, I understand Lerner needs to trim the wage bill and MON did make some very average signings, but the last 4 years I’ve kind of got use to us winning, I don’t want that feeling to disappear!
I like the squad. It might be a little thin but until I read the full list of youngsters coming through, I didn’t realize how deep we were with potential talent. Maybe not world beaters this season but I think we are building a solid foundation for the future.
absolutely.
the thing is, we call them “youngsters”, but many are 19, 20, 21 year old adults. if they’re going to be good enough, they’ve got to be pushing for first team places.
also, as the other clubs have announced their squads – liverpool have 20 named players i think – people are starting to understand that a 22 man squad isn’t anything to be concerned about.