I started keeping tabs on Aston Villa players in the Actim Index Top 100 last year, although I didn’t keep records of every week. In fact, my records aren’t very good at all, but one week I do happen to have from last year is the current week – i.e. after 7 games.

It’s interesting that the record of the first 7 games for this season and last is near identical, yet Villa’s representation in the Actim Top 100 looks quite different:-

There are 6 Aston Villa players in the latest Actim Index Top 100:-

• 21st Gabriel Agbonlahor – 128 points
• 48th Brad Friedel – 104 points
• 57th Ashley Young – 100 points
• 58th James Collins – 100 points
• 64th Richard Dunne – 93 points
• 68th Carlos Cuellar – 90 points

Petrov & Milner have dropped out of the Top 100 and Aston Villa have dropped down 3 places in the Players per Team table:-

2008/09 Season

It was quite a different picture this time last year. When the Index was updated on 7th October 2008 Aston Villa had 10 players in the Top 100 and were 2nd in the team table.

• 3rd Gabriel Agbonlahor- 142 points
• 5th John Carew – 130 points
• 10th Ashley Young – 114 points
• 26th Gareth Barry – 98 points
• 34th Brad Friedel – 91 points
• 37th Martin Laursen – 90 points
• 42nd Nigel Reo-Coker – 87 points
• 48th Nickey Shorey – 86 points
• 58th Curtis Davies – 84 points
• 97th Luke Young – 67 points

As I’ve said many times, Actim is far from infallible, but over the course of a season it’s a very good guide. The better, more influential players do rise to the top and are roughly in the order you might expect, give or take. It’s still early yet, but it could well be a cause for concern that Villa’s players are not doing so well in this year’s Index.

By the way, if you’re interested, Gareth Barry is currently 20th this year with 128 points. Just saying.