Sir Alex Ferguson Praises Aston Villa and Arsenal’s Youth-Orientated Approach

Manchester United legend Sir Alex Ferguson has surprisingly named Aston Villa as the team that impressed him most on the opening weekend of the new Premier League season, while he also praised Arsenal’s youth-orientated approach.

After the first round of fixtures, Unai Emery’s side sit bottom of the table after a 5-1 drubbing at St James’ Park on Saturday night.

The contest had been an end-to-end and high tempo affair early on, with Moussa Diaby cancelling out Sandro Tonali’s opener before Alexander Isak quickly restored the hosts’ lead.

A defensive error allowed the Swedish striker to extend Newcastle’s advantage on the hour-mark before the floodgates opened late on, with Villa’s high defensive line – which had been rocked by a serious injury to Tyrone Mings – routinely exposed.

Sir Alex Impressed with Aston Villa Performance

Despite the one-sided scoreline, Manchester United legend Ferguson was massively impressed with what he saw from Villa and felt they were very unfortunate to be on the wrong side of the result.

Asked which team had impressed him most on the opening weekend, Sir Alex told NBC Sports: ‘To be honest with you, I watched Aston Villa against Newcastle, and I can’t believe the scoreline.

‘Honestly, Aston Villa played fantastic football and just lost bad goals.

‘Newcastle are going to be very difficult to beat in their own ground in particular and the manager [Eddie Howe] has done a great job there.

‘But it’s a surprising game football. I mean, you can play teams off the pitch but you don’t score and that’s what happened to Aston Villa.’

Sir Alex Praises Arsenal’s Youth Development

Sir Alex also underlined the importance of bringing through and developing young talent and feels the current Arsenal side – and Bukayo Saka in particular – are a shining example of that.

He continued: ‘Well for my take, as people talk about when we had the collection of [Ryan] Giggs, [David] Beckham, [Paul] Scholes, [Nicky] Butt and the Nevilles, people thought it was a great team, but what made the team was the spirit they created.

‘They brought a spirit and they never forget you for giving them their chance in life