Aston Villa journalist Gregg Evans has been sharing his thoughts on Villa youngster Carney Chukwuemeka and his future with the Midlands club.
This comes after Evans made an appearance on a recent episode of The Athletic’s Villa-themed podcast 1874, where he spoke about a range of topics concerning Dean Smith’s side.
On the subject of Chukwuemeka, who made his senior debut for the Villans during their recent 2-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League, Evans had this to say about the player.
He said: “There’s huge hype around Carney, he’s going to be a very good player. He could save Villa literally millions and millions of pounds by the way he’s developing and progressing now, and look, he was the fourth-youngest player in the Premier League this season.
“I mean, he’s just got so much ahead of him and he makes the game look so easy. He’s almost got that sort of languid style, but it’s just because he’s so comfortable on a football pitch, and he’s 17 years old, so he’s not even a man yet and there he is playing at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium almost scoring, coming up against the European Cup finalists of a couple of seasons ago and just making football look so easy.
“It’s a really exciting time for Villa.”
Chukwuemeka joined Villa’s youth system from Northampton Town’s youth side back in March 2016. Since then, the 17-year-old centre-midfielder has gone on to make 24 appearances for Villa’s U18 side, in which he has managed to score nine goals and provide eight assists along the way, as well as 21 appearances for Villa’s U23 side (per Transfermarkt).
TIF Thoughts on Gregg Evans’ comments on Chukwuemeka…
Given how in just a handful of minutes on the pitch against Tottenham, Chukwuemeka managed to hit the post with a shot at goal and ultimately earn himself a match rating of 6.44/10 (as per WhoScored), higher than any other Villa substitute that came on and even higher than Marvelous Nakamba, who started the game, this shows just why there is so much hype around him as Evans said.
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Looking ahead to the future, it will be interesting to see if Smith gives the midfielder some more minutes in Villa’s final game of the season against Chelsea and whether or not he will be a regular figure in the team for next season.
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