Jordan Ayew has a brand new kit number, which opens up the number 19 for Stiliyan Petrov to make his return.
The Ghanaian was spotted wearing no 10 jersey at Aston Villa's training grounds
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Aston Villa on Monday posted images on their social media channels, which showed Roberto Di Matteo and his Aston Villa side wearing the new Under Armour training gear for the first time. What is interesting though, is the number on Jordan Ayew’s kit.
Here is a closer look:
That’s right, last season’s number 19, Jordan Ayew is clearly wearing a new number, number 10. It’s a more glamorous number sure, but the bigger deal here is who gets the number 19 jersey now that Jordan Ayew has vacated it.
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Could that man be Stiliyan Petrov?
Before the untimely and cruelly unfortunate illness that robbed Stan of his health and career back in 2013, he wore the number 19 shirt for Villa. Throughout the following season, the Villa Park faithful broke into a minutes applause on the 19 minute mark as a tribute to the then captain of the side, as he battled off the field against Leukaemia.
Earlier this year, Petrov announced his intentions to return to Aston Villa, and the club obliged, giving the Bulgarian the opportunity to take part in pre-season training with the first team. The caveat? Stan had to earn himself a contract with the side.
If Aston Villa have indeed given Petrov his old number back, does this mean that he has been offered a contract with the club? It makes sense, and would surely be a huge morale boost to the rest of the squad ahead of the upcoming Championship campaign.
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And what of Jordan Ayew? This news is more than just a standard number switch, in my opinion. The number 10 jersey was free when Ayew joined Villa last summer (Andi Weimann vacated it a month earlier), and yet he didn’t take it. I struggle to believe that Ayew would change to a number that he could’ve had anyways, unless someone else was to take the number 19. And who else but Stan?
