Ashley Young creates goals

Manchester United today officially announced the signing of winger Ashley Young. The former Aston Villa man has bags of pace, is great from set-pieces and in the past four seasons has created 47 assists in the premier league – only second to Cesc Fabregas. Read on to find out more about this exciting player.

Full name: Ashley Simon Young
Date of birth: 9 July 1985 (1985-07-09) (age 25)
Place of birth: Stevenage, England
Height: 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Playing position: Winger / Attacking midfielder

Ashley Young was born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire to a Jamaican-born father and English mother. He has one older brother and two football-playing younger brothers, Lewis, who made his debut for Watford in 2008, and Kyle, who in April 2009 was training at the Arsenal Academy.

Ashley joined Watford at the tender age of 8 and rose through the ranks under the guidance of coach Chris Cummins. However, at the age of 16, senior figures at Watfor did not believe that Young had the physical requirements to become a professional footballer and did not offer him a contract. A determined Young asked if he could continue training and playing with the club for free, Watford agreed and the player would go on to become one of the best left wingers of the premier league.

From an article by Phil McNulty:

“Chris Cummins was adamant that Watford should not let him go. They didn’t offer him a professional contract, so Ashley asked Watford if they would they let him come in and train on a full-time unpaid basis with the youth team from the start of the season until December, also playing for them.

“He did it for nothing and they then realised that he had developed into their best player at youth level and they offered him a professional contract. They then sold him to Villa for £8.5m going up to £9.6m, and now he has moved again Watford get 15% of anything over that figure. Chris Cummins deserves a lot of credit for that.”

Ashley Young Stats, some of which are courtesy of @OSullivanMUFC on twitter

• Ashley Young is10th on the list of all-time assist makers in the Premier League with 53 assists to his name
• In terms of assists per games, Ashley Young ranks 7th in Premier League history with 0.46 assists per game, behind Giggs, Bergkamp, Cantona, Fabregas, Henry & Beckham
• Only Cesc Fabregas has more Premier League assists than Ashley Young since the 2006/07 season
• He has scored 62 goals and made 70 assist in 300 appearences in all competition
• Ashley Young has scored 33 goals in the Premier League – 32 on his right foot, 1 on his left foot, 34.4% from outside the box & 37.5% from dead balls
• From 07/08-10/11, Ashley Young has provided 30 dead ball league assists: 7.5 per year. #MUFC’s best Nani has averaged 4.25. Improvement
• Young’s dead ball assist rate from the last 4 years of 7.5 per season is better than Beckham – who averaged 4.77 per season in his Man Utd career
• Young has a shots on target ration of 0.55
• Ashley Young hit an impressive 40% oh his shots on target in the premier league last season. Nani was at 26%, Bale 35% and Nasri 38%
• He has only been sent of f once in his prmier league career

Useless trivia bit: Young attended the John Henry Newman School in Stevenage, and played school football alongside Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, who was in the same year.

VIDEO – Ashley Young’s Goals and Assists 2010/11

Ashley Young on signing with Manchester United