Ashley Westwood: The man who keeps Aston Villa ticking

Ashley Westwood

Following weeks of speculation surrounding Charlton’s Dale Stephens last summer, Villa fans were rather bemused to see a boyish young man in a red hoody, smiling cheerfully into the TV cameras outside Bodymoor Heath. ”Is that Dale Stephens?” some fans asked tentatively.

Aston Villa’s last minute scramble for Ashley Westwood on deadline day had fans intrigued, and the player himself was noticeably delighted when he signed for the club.

“It happened so quick. All of a sudden I’m travelling on the motorway and hearing it on the radio,” Westwood told Villa’s official website the following day.

Crewe’s Ashley Westwood arrived last year as a relative unknown, and it’s easy to forget that Premier League fans and pundits had sneered when Paul Lambert dipped into the lower league market for both Lowton and Westwood. In respect of Westwood, Paul Lambert relied heavily on Ian Culverhouse’s opinion, as Villa’s assistant manager advised Lambert, “There’s a lad at Crewe you should keep your eye on…”

The lad in question was Ashley Westwood who had played 158 games and scored 15 goals for Crewe when Paul Lambert came calling. The young midfielder had previously attracted admiring glances from former Swansea manager Brendan Rogers, and Villa’s interest in the player typically went under the radar before a fee was agreed with Crewe on deadline day. Swansea had been prepared to pay £500,000, but Paul Lambert managed to sign the player for just under a million quid.

A small section of Villa fans have remained cautious in their praise of Ashley Westwood, citing the midfielder’s tendency to pass the ball backwards and sideways, as well as forwards.

In defence of this criticism, Westwood certainly managed to pick a pass more regularly than any other player in the Villa squad, having completed 1133 passes for Lambert’s men last year. In addition, the 22-year-old midfielder ended the season with six assists, which is double the amount of assists Stephen Ireland provided when he won the player of the year award and more assists than Stiliyan Petrov contributed in his entire career at Aston Villa.

In these circumstances, it is odd to think that Westwood still has question marks hanging over his head. Westwood fans would argue that his addition to the squad is the main reason why Aston Villa’s style of play has evolved from McLeish’s catenaccio to Lambert’s possession-based football. Westwood’s former admirer, Brendan Rogers, likened him to Joe Allen on account of the Villa man’s ability to keep possession of the ball and maintain the tempo of the team.

Westwood’s passing style won him plaudits in the latter part of the season and he was even been likened to Manchester United’s Michael Carrick. Westwood’s style is simple, but simplicity is often the best approach in football as former Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola once said after his Barcelona side beat Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid, “Our game, our idea to play is simple, ‘I have the ball, I pass the ball; I have the ball, I pass the ball; I have the ball, I pass the ball’.”

Westwood’s performance in the first half against QPR was statistically his most impressive to date with a 100% pass accuracy from 56 attempted passes. In order to operate in the rarefied atmosphere of players such as Xavi and Iniesta, Westwood would need to regularly maintain a pass accuracy of over 92% in each match. Currently, Westwood has an impressive 86% pass success rate accuracy.