With the Aston Villa squad now back at Bodymoor Heath for pre-season training, a number of our new signings have been seen involved with the group for the first time.
Villa have already been busy this summer having announced five new additions to Unai Emery’s squad, while there have been four departures too as we look to balance the books.
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While Ian Maatsen remains on international duty with the Netherlands at EURO 2024, Kosta Nedeljkovic has joined up with the squad for the first time after sealing his January move from Red Star Belgrade, before re-joining the club on loan for the second half of last season.
Joining him at Bodymoor Heath this week has been Lewis Dobbin, Samuel Iling-Junior, Enzo Barrenechea and Ross Barkley, and it signals the start of a pivotal process for those players as they settle in and adapt to not only a new environment and squad, but also the demands put on them by Emery and his coaching staff.
The Villa boss is continuing to mould this squad into his own as he makes further changes, and with that comes the ability to hopefully implement his preferred style of play, structure and system more effectively with individuals who are better suited to his ideas.
In turn, this is a critical period over the summer to get them up to speed both physically and from a tactical perspective, and given everyone but Barkley is 23 years of age or under, these are young players who are still learning and developing their respective games.
The Boss ✅
Enzo Barrenechea ✅
Ross Barkley ✅
Kosta Nedeljkovic ✅Great to see more of the squad back working, can’t wait for our pre-season schedule to get started next week.#avfc #UTV 🟣🔵 pic.twitter.com/3qDUbRRR4b
— Talk Villa (@thetalkvilla) July 10, 2024
Villa’s pre-season fixture schedule gets underway next Wednesday night when we visit Walsall, and so while it’s hoped that we get our first glimpse of our new signings in that game, the bulk of our work will undoubtedly be done during our USA tour that follows.
We’ll hopefully have Maatsen with the squad for that period too as well as any further additions we make to the group, while there is also the boost of having our injured players back as well as our other internationals who were already with the club last year.
It’s an exciting time for Villa as we look forward to seeing the impact of our reinforcements and how Emery not only utilises them but improves them to fit into his philosophy, and it’s all geared towards the start of the new Premier League campaign next month as well as our participation in the Champions League.
Enjoyable first few days! 🫶🏽💙💜 pic.twitter.com/JhGSzJoRT7
— Lewis Dobbin (@LewisDobbin) July 10, 2024