Author: John Townley

Dean Smith and his coaching staff were blown away by the facilities in use at the Minnesota Vikings TCO Performance Center when on pre-season duty in 2019. Ever since Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens took control of the club in 2018, they’ve pledged to put Aston Villa back amongst Europe’s elite. A Championship play-off final under the Wembley arch some nine months after saving the club from financial ruin in a season involving managerial sackings, appointments and record-winning runs was the baptism of fire the NSWE wasn’t expecting having drawn up a two-year promotion plan. Yet, Villa are moving in…

Only three out of the 101 players to have been called up to an England squad ahead of a major tournament since 2000 were born in Birmingham before Gareth Southgate named his 26-man EURO 2020 squad. Here, every spare inch is dedicated to a sport indebted to the city’s trailblazers whose influence on the nation’s game is vast. Exported to the gritty, sweltering tarmac surfaces suffocated by the tight confines between shanty enclaves in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Birmingham’s football scene – like Mumbai’s cricket devoted streets – has never dwindled nor decayed. England’s second city football buzz…

Aston Villa have broken their record transfer fee for a third summer transfer window running after paying up to €35m for Norwich City’s Emiliano Buendia. Securing the services of one of the Championship’s best performing players in recent years is a transfer strategy Villa have deployed in seasons past, and with much success too. Last season, Dean Smith went all out to set up a reunion with Ollie Watkins while Matty Cash was also bought in as the club’s first signing that summer after Villa secured their top-flight status on the final day of the 2019/2020 season. After making a…

Frédéric Guilbert will return to Aston Villa following his loan spell at Strasbourg with a point to prove ahead of the new Premier League season. The French full-back had fallen out of favour at Villa Park following the club’s capture of Matty Cash from Nottingham Forest last season. Cash penned a five-year deal at Villa after he became the club’s first summer signing of a window that Dean Smith was keen to utilise in order to bolster his squad. Having conceded the second-most goals in the Premier League last season, Smith spent his fourth transfer window as the Villa boss…

Italian Sportswear giants Kappa took over from Luke1977 in summer 2019 to work alongside sports v-commerce specialists Fanatics in supplying Aston Villa’s kits and training wear until 2022. Before Villa got their 2018/2019 promotion campaign underway, the club became the first in England to adopt a vertical e-commerce model after announcing a kit partnership with Fanatics and Luke1977. When the SoftBank-backed apparel and merchandise firm Fanatics agreed to a deal with Villa, the club’s officials described aS ‘ground-breaking’ as the US-based company had rarely taken their unique business structure to England in the past. Including the NBA, NFL and MLB…

Uniquely talented tens so often produced on the continent have rarely blossomed since the likes of Gazza, though as we await to see what the shirt holds for Jack Grealish, his England career is about to take off. Season after season, Grealish’s impact at Aston Villa has been unmatched, arguably becoming the single most important player to any football club over the past two years. Wearing the captain’s armband and performing to a level that exceeds his reputation across the country, his ability to wear the Three Lions is now indisputable. He is fully capable of fulfilling his dream of…

Aston Villa’s Under-18s won the FA Youth Cup for the first time in 19 years as the club’s academy continues to turn heads across the country. Only Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal have won the competition more times than Villa’s academy. Six of the players in Villa’s side – who took on Liverpool’s youngsters in the final – started against Jürgen Klopp’s first team in the 4-1 FA Cup defeat in January after a Covid-19 outbreak had ruled out the club’s senior players. When 17-year-old Louie Barry wheeled away in sheer delight after scoring his first goal for the senior…

From Zoom calls with club skipper Jack Grealish to convince the talismanic number 10 to stay not once, but twice, supporting employees through unprecedented times of austerity and uncertainty – they’ve already cemented themselves in Aston Villa folklore, and we’re lucky to have them. Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens’ exemplary running of Aston Villa has been magnified in the success the club has seen on the pitch, how its community has been supported during the coronavirus pandemic and in recent weeks when football club ownership has been scrutinised under the microscope. “Our goal is to bring sustainable success to the…

Aston Villa’s 2020/21 season has been a successful one, full of memorable games and individual performances even if fans weren’t allowed on the stands of Villa Park for almost the whole campaign. Despite making a record-breaking start to the Premier League season, Villa fell short by one place outside of the top 10 to end the campaign in 11th position. The last time Villa had claimed a top-half finish was back in 2011, though the club was soon about to embark on quite a dramatic descent from the heights scaled on years previously under Martin O’Neill. The well-publicised fall of…

Bradley Young has scored 20 goals this season in games for Aston Villa’s Academy sides, with many of his strikes coming in the Under-18 Premier League. With 13 goals in 16 starts for Villa’s U18s in the league this term, Young has scored over a quarter of Sean Verity’s side’s goals this term and has since made the step-up to Under-23s football. Deserving of his opportunity to play amongst the likes of Louie Barry and Carney Chukwuemeka in Villa’s promising U23 side, Young has scored two goals in four starts, in Premier League 2 fixtures against Newcastle and Sunderland. Since…