24-year-old now tipped to turn Aston Villa career around with ‘pre-season’ chance

Journalist Pete O’Rourke has dubbed Leon Bailey to come good for Aston Villa after an injury-riddled season in his first campaign in England.

Bailey has had a frustrating year of injury problems and being out of favour at Aston Villa in the Premier League, featuring 16 times in the league, but making just five starts since he arrived from Bayer Leverkusen last summer for £25m.

Villa brought in Philippe Coutinho from Barcelona on loan in January and he has been in brilliant form since, making 12 appearances in the Premier League whilst scoring four goals and assisting three times.

After Aston Villa spent big money on the Jamaican winger, O’Rourke told GiveMeSport that he expects Bailey to come good next year for Steven Gerrard despite his slow start.

He said: “I wouldn’t expect him to leave. Injuries have held Bailey back more than anything else. He’s obviously a quality player.

“Villa spent big money on him, and he’s shown flashes of what he can bring to the team, but he’s not been consistent enough or had a free run with injuries to nail down a regular place, so I expect him to come back for pre-season and show his true worth to Villa and try and prove second season he might be a bit more settled in.”

TIF Thoughts on Pete O’Rourke’s comments…

Bailey was in immense form for Leverkusen, which initially earned him the move to Villa. In the Bundesliga last term, he had the club’s highest average player rating (7.3) and the highest amount of goal contributions (17), as well as recording the second-highest amount of big chances created (8), as per SofaScore.

With the impressive form of the 24-year-old last season, it would have been disappointing for the Villa faithful to see Bailey have such little impact on the field in the