Unai Emery has revealed Ashley Young is playing a “very important” role in the Aston Villa dressing room as he uses his experiences of competing at the top of the Premier League to help his teammates in the final five games of this season. Villa are currently in sixth position with only five games left to play this term after winning eight of their last 10 league matches. Since Emery replaced Steven Gerrard as head coach, only Arsenal and Man City have collected more points than Villa, and Young has played a key role in the club’s turnaround in form.
The 37-year-old has started 13 league games under Emery, including the club’s last six and Villa have kept four clean sheets from those games. Young will likely start his third match in eight days when he returns to his former club Manchester United with Villa on Sunday, and Emery has backed the full-back to continue playing for many more years.
Unai Emery said: “I think football has changed, now every player has the best preparation to get a longer career. Ashley Young is an example. I had players like this at Villarreal too. If you didn’t know his age you could think he is 28 because every day even as much as he is playing he is playing very well. Before usually you were seeing players of 32, 34 starting to finish their careers 20 years ago. At Villarreal we were signing players 35, 36, like Jose Luis Morales and we didn’t change our mind for his age. Now it is the same for Young. We are going to speak about him. Now is not the moment, but of course he can extend his career longer than this year. He is very important in the dressing room. I am using him a lot of times when we are speaking together before matches about our experiences – my experiences and the players’ experiences. Ashley Young is very important because he had a very good career. He had a lot of experiences in Manchester United and Inter Milan. He played in European matches, key matches, under pressure. I want to use him with his experiences to tell us about how he felt in each moment. On Sunday as well he will be important. Maybe he will say just three words or a short message he can give us. Usually before the matches I want the players as well to ask how they are feeling and how they are facing each match.”
