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The youth system at Aston Villa is widely recognised to be one of the best around, but its graduates haven’t always gone on to achieve the success expected of them. Darius Vassell, Stefan and Luke Moore, and a whole host of other highly regarded prospects have come and gone at Villa Park and now ply their trade lower down the football ladder. The notable exceptions in recent years have been those imported from elsewhere in the British Isles who have gone on to do well at other clubs - Steven Davis, Liam Ridgewell and Gary Cahill in particular - and Gabriel Agbonlahor, the Erdington-born striker who looks set to break the mould for young strikers at the club.

Recent youth products at Villa haven’t broken into the first team as quickly as they might have hoped. Martin O’Neill displayed a startling penchant for putting square pegs in round holes and playing injured players, and the latest breed of Villa youngsters missed out in his time at the club. With O’Neill departed, Gerard Houllier in the dugout and an injury crisis laying siege to the Villa side, many of the stars of Villa’s successful youth and reserve teams have been offered opportunities to shine this season.

On Saturday, Villa started their home clash with Manchester United with Ashley Young playing off Villa product Agbonlahor in front of a four-man midfield whose senior member was Stewart Downing. Having given 21-year-old centre-back Ciaran Clark a midfield appearance against Birmingham City, Houllier responded to further injuries by selecting Marc Albrighton (20), Barry Bannan (20) and debutant Jonathan Hogg (21) in the middle of the pitch.

Villa’s options from the bench were even more fresh-faced than the starters: Nathan Delfouneso is 19; Eric Lichaj 21; Chris Herd 21; Brad Guzan the oldest sub at 26; Daniel Johnson 18; the inexplicably-still-at-Villa Isaiah Osbourne 23; Shane Lowry 21. Arriving at Villa Park expecting my team to get roundly thrashed on Saturday, you might expect that hearing the 18 names read out might induce panic. It didn’t. Instead, I was suddenly more excited about a Villa league match than I’ve been for a long time.

You see, supporting a middling Premier League side with lofty ambitions and average weaponry is a frustrating experience. Sure, there’s talk of progress but Villa aren’t going to win the league any time soon so how exactly should we define success? If coming fourth - that’s the one behind first, second and third - is success then football loses its edge. Beating United at home in the league for the first time since 1995 (I was there, and it was bloody brilliant) would be fantastic but I’ve got this creeping feeling these days that individual results mean little. If fourth is the out-of-reach best case scenario, and relegation is extremely unlikely, we’re reduced to getting arbitrarily excited about isolated results.

However, we also have something else to get our collective juices flowing in this staid and stagnant era of the top-flight game: the kids, the youth, the locals boys done good. And that’s why upon hearing the line-up on Saturday I quickly became very interested in the game. Here we were, facing a team that we almost never beat, on television, and we were playing the kids. And I couldn’t have been happier, or so I thought. 90 minutes later I was ecstatic.

Many of you will have seen the Villa performance or heard about it subsequently. It was brilliant, inspired, phenomenal. Although my man of the match was Downing, the kids stole the headlines. Hogg overcame some early nerves to put in a steady showing in the middle of the pitch. Albrighton continued to impress as the next most experienced player in the midfield, once again adding a threat and productivity to his Milnerish swaggers up the wing. Most thrillingly, in a midfield battle with Michael Carrick and Darren Fletcher, Wee Barry Bannan ran the show with a mature and cultured display.

A good first half was overshadowed by a superb second in which Villa’s verve and pace was simply too much for United to cope with. Having hit the woodwork twice and missed a great chance through Albrighton, Villa got their deserved lead when Ashley Young was fouled by Wes Brown in the box and kept his cool in the face of Edwin van der Sar’s pre-kick antics. Four minutes later, two of the old heads combined as Young passed to Downing, who crossed for Albrighton to gleefully knock in Villa’s second. Cue wild celebrations and the loss of this writer’s voice. It’s still missing, and it’s as much to do with who Villa’s players were as the fact that we went 2-0 up against the most unfortunate of bogey sides.

In the final ten minutes United got two goals to escape from Villa Park with a point in their pockets. Federico Macheda drove in the first and Nemanja Vidic’s header made it 2-2, but the comeback - which has predictably hogged the headlines - will become insignificant in time for Villa supporters. Even against top opponents, it’s not often fans leave a game after their side throws away a 2-2 lead and aren’t extremely upset. But on Saturday the mood was overwhelmingly positive. Villa fans are brimming with pride after their young and inexperienced team played Manchester United in a positive, swashbuckling way and were comfortably the better team for 70-odd minutes.

Although they succumbed to United’s relentless determination in the end, there is as much to be encouraged about at Villa under Houllier as there is to get used to. Albrighton is already capable of beating his man, putting in a cross and scoring a goal. Bannan could grow into the best passer of a ball at Villa since Paul Merson. Clark is assured and confident at the back and has enough quality on the ball to have already been deployed in defensive midfield. If those aren’t reasons to be cheerful then football truly is on its last legs.

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Tags: Aston Villa