Agbonlahor blow

Friday, 11/11/2011

by Steven Green, Shoot's Aston Villa blogger

For the second time this season injury has deprived Gabriel Agbonlahor of showing Fabio Capello as well as the rest of the country that he could be the answer to England’s striking problems in the wake of Wayne Rooney’s absence.

The Birmingham-born forward pulled out of the squad this morning with a hamstring complaint and will now miss both of England’s friendly’s against Spain and Sweden.

It’s an incredible shame too as by all accounts he was set to start alongside Darren Bent and the pair would have had the chance to test themselves against the best side in the world. A good performance would have bred confidence in both of them, which they could have carried over to their club.

For Villa fans though watching England these days is a ritual of lament. With so many former Villa players in the squad fans can only think ‘what if?’

Ashley Young, Stuart Downing, James Milner, Gareth Barry and Gary Cahill have all established themselves in the national side lately and it wasn’t that long ago that they all wore the claret and blue together. Villa have always produced a healthy input to the national team and it is slightly heartbreaking to see them all move on.

Only Darren Bent, Agbonlahor and perhaps Stephen Warnock will catch Capello’s eye for now but there may be another name in the near future that can be added to those already mentioned.

On Thursday night during the England under-21 game against Iceland young Villa midfielder Gary Gardner scored his first professional goals in a 5-0 victory in Colchester. Gardner hadn’t been on the pitch long before confidently dispatching a truly amazing free kick, he then added a second towards the end with a well-taken low drive into the corner.

Gardner’s emergence is exciting for Villa; there is a lot of buzz around him that he could be the next big thing from the clubs great youth academy. Hopefully Alex McLeish will begin to use him more in the first team as Barry Bannan and Marc Albrighton have already proved that playing younger players does pay off.

It may be a while before Villa have four or five names called up by the national team at the same time but if the young players keep playing as well as they can then the step up from the under 21’s won’t be so large.

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