Joe Ellis

Sun 3 July 2022 19:14, UK

England Under-19 international Tim Iroegbunam is one of the most promising young talents at Aston Villa but he needs to find more.

The 19-year-old made a handful of appearances under Steven Gerrard towards the end of the 2021-22 campaign and looked fairly composed for someone of such a tender age.

As a result, he was called up to the England Under-19s squad for their European Championships which England eventually won in extra-time against Israel.

He couldn’t, however, maintain a regular place in the team and he will need to make a big step up in his performance levels very early on next season if he is going to become a regular at Villa Park.

Perhaps the only good thing Iroegbunam did during that final was this late block as Israel tried to win the game within the 90 minutes.

Even though he did get in the way, he does look a lot less committed to protecting his goal than the two defenders alongside him who literally threw their bodies towards the shot for their country.

One of his more worrying problems though was a lack of effort in tracking back which is a major part of his job as the deepest midfielder in the team.

Here, he is lazily jogging back towards the box rather than sprinting to deny any oncoming attackers and that will not have pleased Gerrard whatsoever, being a former midfielder himself.

Much earlier in the tournament against Austria, Iroegbunam’s lackadaisical attitude was evident to see as the pressing midfield and attack easily dispossessed him of the ball and they started a counter-attack as a result.

Aston Villa cannot afford to play a player who is so lacking in effort and desire and Gerrard will make that abundantly clear to the teenager when he returns for pre-season training.

In other Aston Villa news, an Under-23 player we only had for one year has left Villa Park to head across the second city to join Birmingham.