Many of the individuals in the OP list emerged from our Academy, interestingly.Jonathan Hogg has captained 'udders for the last 2 Premier League seasons and really didn't get much of a look-in with us. Callum Robinson has just made the Irish squad … not necessarily moving him any further forward than where we are now.Daniel Johnson has become a very accomplished second-tier player.The question I'd ask is: if we'd had some decent coaches and a manager who valued bringing youth through from 2006 onwards, how many of the aforementioned players in the OP, and others listed, would have helped Villa push on to a regular top-4 position (as opposed to where we are right now)?
The obvious "opposite" player here is Benteke, who seems to have been twice the player for us to the one he has been for anybody else.We still definitely seem to be losing this overall, in recent years. I supposed that's one of the reasons why we have collapsed from top six in the top flight to below midtable in this shitty league in less than a decade.