Aston Villa journalist Ashley Preece has been sharing his thoughts on Villa winger Leon Bailey and his latest appearance for the Midlands club during their recent 3-0 defeat against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
This comes after Preece made an appearance on a recent episode of the Birmingham Mail’s Claret & Blue Podcast where he spoke about a number of topics concerning Dean Smith’s team.
On the subject of the defeat against Chelsea, Preece had this to say about Bailey, in particular, after he came on as a substitute in the second half of the match. (10.33)
He said: “I was really impressed with Bailey.
“A lot of people said to me they didn’t see too much of him but the press bench at Stamford Bridge is really close to the pitch, just his feet, I mean, he didn’t give the ball away too many times.
“He twisted [Antonio] Rudiger inside out, he nutmegged [Marcos] Alonso, he really, really enjoyed himself in that half an hour he had so I’m really, really excited about him.”
TIF Thoughts on Ashley Preece’s comments on Bailey and his cameo appearance against Chelsea…
Villa signed the 24-year-old, who is currently valued at £31.5 million according to Transfermarkt, during the recent summer transfer window from German club Bayer Leverkusen for a fee of £28.8 million.
Taking into account what Preece had to say in the podcast about Bailey’s cameo appearance against Chelsea and the fact that the winger managed to grab an assist during his Villa debut in their 3-2 defeat against Watford on the opening day of the season where he played for just 30 minutes, it’s easy to see why the journalist is excited about seeing what Bailey can do in a Villa shirt.
Moving forward, we feel that it would be a good idea for Smith to give Bailey his first start for Villa in their upcoming Premier League match against Everton at the weekend to see what sort of impact he can have from kick-off rather than off the substitutes bench.