Aston Villa have now found their biggest young talent since Jack Grealish

Aston Villa are starting to warm to this new chapter in Unai Emery’s system, having started to see signs of growth after a summer of upheaval.

It’s been a testing start. After three Premier League games, the Villa only have one point – and are yet to score a goal. But they put Club Brugge to the sword in a thrilling game in Belgium on Tuesday evening, presenting to Europe their credentials in the Champions League.

REUTERS/Maurice Van Steen

From the seeds of this recent summer transfer window, new superstars will bloom. Aston Villa have lost a couple of talismanic players – but they have countered such setbacks before.

How Aston Villa have responded to Jack Grealish

Since catapulting back into the Premier League after several shadowed years in the Championship, Villa Park has been through quite the rollercoaster, from Hawk-eye-gate to lifting the Europa League under Emery’s wing last season.

Precipitating Emery’s arrival in Steven Gerrard’s stead was the £100m sale of Jack Grealish to Manchester City in 2021. Now there was a departure which felt it would leave an unfillable hole in the Midlands, but in the years since the England playmaker’s move, the Villans have only gone from strength to strength.

Grealish, citygrown, will always hold a special seat at Aston Villa, but what felt like the bitter end of an exciting era merely gave way to even loftier dreams, with the £100m banked for his signature spent on players such as Emiliano Buendia, Leon Bailey and Lucas Digne, all of whom have played a role under the title-winning Emery.

Make no mistake, Grealish was a dab hand when on the ball, capable of creating magical moments beyond the dreams of most other playmakers, but Emery pulled off something special when replacing him with Morgan Rogers, signing the Middlesbrough prospect for only £8m.

Like his compatriot, Rogers has gone on to leave Villa for a nine-figure fee. He started his career in west London in fine fettle, but Emery rests assured knowing that his scouting and coaching skills grew Rogers into a superstar and secured for Villa a European title.

Now, the Midlands club have another rebuild on their hands. Here they must piece a project back together, and for that, they need a new talisman.

Rogers has gone, and Ollie Watkins too. So have Digne and Youri Tielemans and Ezri Konsa and Emi Martinez. Many replacements have been drafted in – but Emery had already signed Aston Villa’s new superstar.

Aston Villa have found their biggest talent since Grealish

Rogers is a fantastic footballer. Some would say world-class. However, in regard to natural talent, he is probably pipped by Grealish, whose skill on the ball is the stuff of legends. Those days, for his boyhood club, he was unbeatable, an indomitable, awe-inspiring dribbler.

Aston Villa need someone else to rise up and do things others in claret simply can’t produce. Perhaps they have just the man in Brian Madjo, who is currently sidelined with injury, but has already showcased his quality for Villa this season, scoring against Paris Saint-Germain during the UEFA Super Cup.

Madjo signed for the English club from Metz in France back in January for around £10m. However, he was unable to complete registration due to FIFA restrictions regarding minors, thus unable to play across the latter half of last term.

But he was worth the wait. Emery’s side lost to PSG, but this physical monster of a forward brutalised the French giants’ backline, scoring, yes, but also making a nuisance of himself throughout the evening, shrugging and barging his opponents, creating two chances for his teammates.

A powerhouse of a centre-forward, the 17-year-old already stands at 6 foot 4, his frame and sinewy strength giving the impression of a certain other elite Premier League goalscorer. Indeed, esteemed Spanish reporter Guillem Balague has asserted that Madjo is “Haaland in the making“.

Erling Haaland. Possibly the greatest striker of his generation. He has years still ahead of him to reinforce that argument. He could have a new challenger in Madjo, though, whose goal against PSG put his name on the map – but who has already dazzled in front of goal at youth level.

For Metz’s U19 outfit, Madjo scored 13 goals across 27 matches in 2024/25. At the time, he was only 15 years old.

This could be the biggest talent Aston Villa has seen for a long time, surpassing Rogers and maybe even Grealish too. Given the importance of finding a new source of goals after Watkins’ sale to Al-Hilal, there’s no question that Madjo has a weight of expectation behind him – especially after such a consummate debut.

There is something prodigious about this one, the sense that he could explode into life in a similar way to Haaland, who proved quite quickly that he can score goals with frightening consistency, no matter the setting or his surroundings.

Aston Villa are at the start of a new chapter. Perhaps, after winning the Europa League, time will prove that wiping the slate was the right call. Some exciting names are bedding in, but with Madjo, Emery might just have a striker destined for superstardom, the biggest talent this side has seen since Grealish rose from the academy.