Jesse Francois: 'Already does the hard things simply'
Our scouts have watched Aston Villa's 19-year-old Englishman closely this season, and what they saw was a player who makes the difficult look routine.
Fifteen appearances for Aston Villa in this 2063/64 season, and one goal, tell only part of the story of Jesse Francois. What the scouts noticed first was not the numbers but the ease of him: the way he moves across the ground, the agility that lets him turn in a crowd, the acceleration that carries him clear of a challenge before the defender has committed. There is a natural fitness to him, a stamina that keeps the same sharpness in the closing minutes as at the start.
He has come through Villa's own youth intake, arriving in March 2060, and the club has had the patience to let him grow into the first team. The one note that stayed with our watchers was that he already does the hard things simply, which is the rarest habit a young player can have. How far that carries him, nobody can say. But the raw materials are there, and Villa know it.