Former Aston Villa coach George Boateng gives fascinating insight into young star ‘ready for first team’ and makes bold Emery claim

In the fourth part of an exclusive interview with Ladbrokes: Fanzone, former Aston Villa midfielder George Boateng talks about manager Unai Emery and picks out one of the club’s young players he reckons is ready to step up to the senior team.

Click on the link for part one in which Boateng talked about Chelsea, Arsenal, Jude Bellingham and Liverpool, and the second where he gave his thoughts on Newcastle. In part three he discussed Gareth Southgate, Jack Grealish and Steven Gerrrard.

Emery can get Villa back into Europe

The change of manager has given Aston Villa players a reason to perform, because everyone is trying to impress Unai Emery – you can tell that energy levels have gone up and their tactics have changed. Unai is a fantastic manager and I really think Aston Villa will reap the benefits of Arsenal’s failures with him in charge. That experience gave Emery a great insight into what English football is about, how difficult the Premier League is and what he needed to do as a manager to win games at this level.

You can tell he’s come back as a much better manager. The game which stood out for me was against Tottenham – the way he set the team up was perfect for an away game. No goals conceded, no chances given away and countering with purpose – they did all of that to perfection. Aston Villa have a fantastic manager in Unai Emery. I believe the club have broken a record in terms of the length of his contract, which shows us exactly what the owners want: consistency and a rebuild.

I can see Aston Villa getting back into the European spots, not only because of the manager, but also because they have the financial backing. Unai knows the players he needs, and things are only going to get better from here. It’s all to do with timing. Things were so bad before Unai took over, in terms of player injuries – losing someone like Boubacar Kamara earlier on in the season really didn’t help things, because they went for so long without that holding midfielder. We’re now seeing the best of Leon Bailey, Ollie Watkins and Jacob Ramsey further up the pitch, because he knows that area is covered by Kamara.

"Keep backing us, keep believing in us and we'll produce as much as we can on the pitch." 👊 @Youngy18 pic.twitter.com/Gq9nh0hSY2

— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) January 28, 2023

Players are also performing better. Ashley Young was in and out of the side under the previous manager, but now he’s featuring more regularly at right-back. He’s performing fantastically, he’s so experienced… what a player he is to have in the dressing room, when you look at the career he’s had. That can only be a good thing for the players around him… you can only improve when you have someone like that in your squad.

I like how Unai sets his team up to play. Ashley Young will play right-back and Matty Cash will play further up the pitch, despite being a full-back. Unai’s clearly spotted something there and it’s working. If you’d have asked a Villa fan what they thought about the idea of Cash playing right wing earlier on this season, they’d have thought you were crazy!

Kaine Kesler is ready for the first team

The team is solid and there’s depth developing throughout the squad. In terms of strengthening, I believe Unai should first look at some of the boys coming through the U21s set-up. One boy in particular, Kaine Kesler, in my opinion, is ready for an opportunity in the first team. He was one of the brightest players I had in my Under-21 set-up while I was at the club.

Thank you ❤️ pic.twitter.com/tLtcCykHtv

— Kaine Kesler (@KaineKeslerHayd) January 15, 2023

He’s been out on loan to Huddersfield and he’s now returned in good shape. If he can force his way into the first team, I’d have no doubt he’d be as good an option as going out and spending money on a new signing. So the club can definitely save money by bringing through some of these young boys in the next few months. Plenty of those guys are ready, they just need games.

One prospect we took from West Brom was Tim Iroegbunam who is now on loan at QPR and he’s doing very, very well. He plays more as a defensive midfielder, like an eight. He’s one who I’d really be keeping a close eye on, because I think he can develop into a top, top player. I believe that by the time he makes his Premier League debut, we’ll see that he was the best player we’ve ever taken from West Brom.