Gabriel Agbonlahor

I’ll tell you what, after the impressive display over the weekend against Everton, Aston Villa have a start in the making with Gabriel Agbonlahor.

While Gareth Barry and Ashley Young have been good, Agbonlahor been Villa’s best player this season with his sights set on and England call up which he is really starting to deserve. At age 20, his potential is outstanding.

The finest example of this was a sublime piece of ball control against Everton that saw Agbonlahor beat the offside, receive a goal kick from 70 yards, kill the ball’s pace and then slide it past keeper Stefan Wessels perfectly. I was almost as good as Dennis Bergkamp’s winner against Argentina in the ’98 World Cup knock-out round.

He’s been a consistent starter since Martin O’Neill arrived at Villa Park and has steadily improved to the point where every team is aware of his threat going in. He lead Villa in scoring last season with 10 goals and has already netted 4 this season including the winner against Chelsea three weeks ago.

Agbonlahor has a Nigerian father and Scottish mother. He’s got an accent so thick you can hardly understand him. His first season at the Aston Villa academy was in 2002 where he scored 9 goals in 18 appearances. The next season he scored a huge 35 goals in 29 games in the 2003 season, and followed with 18 goals in 22 games the next season. That’s 62 goals in 71 appearances. By any standard an impressive youth record, in the remaining 37 games he played for the reserves, he netted 19 more times.

His promise was rewarded as he scored in his March 2006 debut against Everton. Agbonlahor is developing a reputation for scoring against the big teams. He’s fearless, quick and technically gifted, he’ll continue to make an impact in the Premiership and should soon have his first senior cap.