During a busy summer transfer window, amongst all the bustle of Steven Gerrard’s supposed revolution, Aston Villa managed to tie down one of their key young assets in Cameron Archer.
The 20-year-old – who has enjoyed loan spells at Solihull Moors and Preston North End – was then quoted as looking forward to the battle for first-team spots with the seasoned professionals in front of him.
He said: “You’ve got players like Danny Ings, Ollie Watkins and he (Gerrard) wants to keep me around to fight for a place in the squad. I like learning from them, they’re established Premier League goalscorers.”
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However, since then he has featured five times in the Premier League, accruing a total of just 36 minutes as he wasted away under the former management team.
The young striker has shown much promise during his time at Villa Park, with a consistent stream of goals at youth level and last season in the Championship.
It was the next natural step up to gain an increased involvement in the Villans’ senior squad, particularly when his competition, Ings and Watkins, had scored just once each under Gerrard this season.
During the first half of last term, Archer once again set about proving that youth football was beneath him. He scored three and assisted two in just four Premier League 2 games, and even against lower-tier senior sides scored six goals in four EFL Trophy matches.
So when he earned his half-a-season loan move to the Lilywhites, it was no surprise that he continued this trend, with seven goals in 20 Championship outings.
This exposure to senior football likely led to the 1500% rise in his value over the last 11 months, with the starlet receiving glowing praise from his manager Ryan Lowe.
He said: “His quality levels are fantastic, he’s bullish, strong, he can roll, he has got that little burst of pace too.”
Having been promised increased opportunity under the last manager, Unai Emery will have been briefed on his goalscoring prowess upon joining the Midlands club.
It is now his turn to surely unleash the youngster who knows how to find the back of the net with regularity; something that his current forwards clearly do not.
