Aston Villa: Why Luke Young and Marc Albrighton are like new signings
Sep 4 2010 by Mathew Kendrick, Birmingham Mail
DURING the summer Luke Young and Marc Albrighton didn’t join Stephen Ireland in posing for those traditional scarf-waving photographs which officially announce players’ arrivals.
But, when it comes to ‘new signings’, there’s no doubt the right-sided duo fit that description almost as much as the ex-Manchester City midfielder.
How successful a replacement Ireland proves to be for James Milner remains to be seen with the new boy enduring a miserable introduction at Villa Park.
However, Young and Albrighton have already shown that the claret and blues have two promising additions to the shallow pick of players from last season.
Young is surely the biggest success story so far in terms of disillusioned senior players being re-integrated back into the first team fold.
To look at the joy on his face when he curled in the winner against Everton last weekend, it was almost as if 12 months of frustration melted away in one swing of his boot.
(Although the irony of it being scored with his weaker foot will not have been lost on a right-back whose limited opportunities under Martin O’Neill came on the left side).
As for Albrighton, the Tamworth tormentor has been a breath of fresh air these past few weeks.
The Villa Park faithful love nothing more than seeing one of their own pull on the claret and blue and Albrighton being one of the most precocious talents in the top flight only adds to the excitement.
Whether he would have been afforded the same chances under the previous manager as he has by Kevin MacDonald will never be known.
