Marc Albrighton has been recently named Aston Villa’s player of the month for his fine performances in December. Albrighton had just come back from a loan at Championship club Wigan but he managed to get straight into the first-team and has made several starts. Despite not scoring a single goal, or a obtaining a single assists; Albrighton’s general play style and constant attacking threat was enough to earn him the reward for this year. Obviously many fans pointed out that he was simply ‘the best of the bunch’ in what was a poor month for Aston Villa.
Despite our poor performances Albrighton has been a shining light in the Aston Villa midfield and has been really unlucky not to have a single assist on his name. It can be agreed that Albrighton is good at crossing the ball into the box and offers Aston Villa some genuine width. Against Sheffield United Albrighton was consistently creating decent crosses for Benteke. And this was only from a single highlights video.
Paul Lambert has a decision to make. Albrighton is entering his final few months of his current deal at Aston Villa and at the age of 24 he is soon entering his prime. Albrighton is regaining his match fitness and he isn’t too far from obtaining a similar form that saw the player dubbed as the future ‘David Beckham’. During this month the player may start speaking to other clubs in regards to a pre-contract. Albrighton is an Aston Villa fan for life and he loves playing for this club. He has graduated from the Villa youth academy and it’s fair to say he worked incredibly hard to establish a spot Villa’s starting 11.
Does he deserve a contract extension? In my opinion definitely. I’m a big fan of Albrighton because he offers the club width and has been more effective than Weimann, El Ahmadi and Tonev this season. You could argue he’s the best winger we have at this club. But does Lambert feel the same? Only time will tell. I don’t expect Lambert to offer anyone a new contract until the end of the season and because of this Albrighton will have to wait. He’ll be given some more time to impress and I reckon with a few goals and assists it’ll convince Lambert.
Who needs Rooney, when we have Bowery? 🙂