Not quite what I was expecting this week. Following the loss at Blackburn, the Villa players in the Top 100 positions slipped a little from last week, but the number of players in the Top 100 increased!!

Last week it was Stan Petrov finally crashing the Top 100 and this week it’s James Milner joining the party. Milner didn’t finish the 2006/07 season in the Top 100, but that would have been some feat for a 21 year old in a Newcastle side that only contributed 3 players to the final Top 100 – Michael Owen (69th), Steven Taylor (72nd) and Nicky Butt (91st).

I remember seeing a lot of bitter online comments from Newcastle fans when Milner made the switch to Villa. They were very keen to point out his unimpressive stats from the previous season and thanked us kindly for the 12 million big ones which they would be laughing all the way to the bank with. Or the Championship as it turned out.

Obviously playing in a Claret and Blue shirt made the difference for James as he finished the 2008/09 season in 25th place with 430 points, just 5 points behind Ashley Young in 23rd place. (In the interests of full disclosure I should point out that when he joined us in August he was already in the Top 100 from the handful of games he’d played for Newcastle).

Anyway, there are 8 Aston Villa players in the latest Actim Index Top 100:-

• 20th Gabriel Agbonlahor – 121 points
• 44th James Collins – 98 points
• 50th Brad Friedel – 93 points
• 55th Ashley Young – 86 points
• 61st Carlos Cuellar – 82 points
• 82nd James Milner – 75 points
• 83rd Richard Dunne – 74 points
• 94th Stiliyan Petrov 69 points

Despite Villa’s loss in Blackburn and the players who were already in the Top 100 slipping position slightly, James Milner’s inclusion has boosted the average score from 82.00 to 87.25. Based on the number of players and their average scores Villa currently rank 6th, but without James Milner crashing the Top 100 we would have been 9th, behind Arsenal.