Aston Villa season in review: Alan Hutton

No player evokes more mixed feelings than Alan Hutton. Much maligned over his Aston Villa career, Alan Hutton completed a fairly decent season at age 32. The question is: can he keep it up for another year?

RB – Alan Hutton, 32

Appearances: 34

WhoScored Aggregate: 6.94

Alan Hutton surely did not start out on the right foot, but boy did he end the season with a strong run of form. The former Scotland international was a huge part of the backline that kept seven clean sheets in eight league appearances back in March.

Hutton’s tireless running always impresses, but it’s his technical ability that nominally lets him down.

That all changed mid-way through the campaign. Alan Hutton actually stopped lunging at every tackle. Instead, he transformed himself with an iota of positional awareness – evident with only five bookings in 31 starts (34 total appearances). His fairly impressive display of defense helped ease an inexperienced backline, alongside James Chester.

Despite his outside runs, Alan Hutton did not offer much to the Aston Villa attack. He recorded just a singular assist from almost 2,900 minutes of league football. An improvement is needed from a modern day fullback. Villa’s bottom-five scoring offense did not help the cause, however. Much of this resulted from poor crossing on the right flank.

Hutton’s passing woes continued this season; he recorded a 66.4% pass success rate.

Next: No, Jermaine Defoe is not coming to Villa Park

2017-2018 Prediction: Villa manager Steve Bruce exercised a one year extension option on Alan Hutton’s contract. Hutton will return to the claret and blues, but lose starts to both James Bree and Ritchie De Laet. He will remain a valuable role player to the club though. Hutton is a popular character within the clubhouse.