Aston Villa journalist Ashley Preece has been sharing some details regarding Villa youngster Cameron Archer and his current situation at the Midlands club.
This comes after Preece made an appearance on a recent episode of the Birmingham Mail’s Villa-themed podcast Claret & Blue, where he spoke about a variety of topics concerning Dean Smith’s side.
During the podcast, Preece was asked what his thoughts are on Archer and how he has developed through the club’s youth system and his loan spell at Solihull Moors.
In response, Preece had this to say about the 20-year-old.
He said: “I think his deal is out this summer coming now. He wasn’t tied down to a long-term deal, so Villa were unsure on him, given he’s a couple of years older than [Louie] Barry and [Brad] Young and others.
“I think he’s taken his chance in the [Carabao] Cup, he looks at real finisher. I see him warming up, he looks a good size now, he’s matured, got a good pace about him.
“The young lads call him a little [Carlos] Tevez. Dean Smith likes him because he wouldn’t have picked him two years ago at Crewe, so he’s well-liked in that sense, so he deserves a chance, for me.
“I think he’ll probably get half an hour in the week and can show his stuff there. I think Villa turned away countless offers for him on deadline day, so they think highly of him and it’s up to him now to take his chance.
“I mean, from what I’ve been told, he’s been really impressive in training, he scored a hat-trick in behind-closed-doors games as well so yeah, good finisher as we’ve seen at Barrow, real fox-in-the-box finisher.”
TIF Thoughts on Ashley Preece’s comments on Archer…
Since making his senior debut for Villa back in 2019 during the club’s 6-1 win over Crewe Alexandra in the Carabao Cup as Preece mentioned, Archer has made just one other senior appearance for the club, in their 6-0 win over Barrow last month where he scored three of Villa’s goals on the day.
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Taking this into account, it’s easy to see why Preece thinks Archer should be given a chance to play in Villa’s upcoming Carabao Cup game against Chelsea to see if the player can put in a decent performance against a tougher opponent than he’s played so far for Smith’s side.
In our view, we feel that it would be good for Archer to start against Chelsea in midweek to see if he can show he’s capable of being a viable senior option for the team and also to possibly rest some of Villa’s more experienced attacking players such as Ollie Watkins and Danny Ings.