Leon Bailey scored Aston Villa’s winner against Leicester as he finally got off the mark for the current campaign, but he insists there’s a good reason why it took him so long to score
Leon Bailey didn’t expect his first goal of this season to arrive in 2025. But, he argues, there are mitigating circumstances as to why it has taken him five months to get off the mark.
The Jamaica international was one of the stand-out performers as Villa cemented a Champions League spot last term. It’s not really happened for him this season.
“I am now feeling great,” he said, “I did have a groin injury and two hamstring problems. It is common knowledge when a player is stop-start, stop-start with injuries, coming back, your confidence level is hit. It is normal. No player is coming back from injury with their confidence levels over the moon. It is going to take them time.
“Look at Jacob Ramsey. He is coming back, now he needs to start finding himself, get some minutes and start building up his confidence. It is like that for every player.
“Me, I am a sprinter, a person who makes a lot of runs. And these things happen. We do a lot of work behind the scenes but even while working, you can still be unfortunate. And I have just been unfortunate in the first half of the season. Hopefully we can change that in the second half of the season.
“It happens to the best of the best. It is football, you just have to accept it, work harder, come back and continue.”
Bailey highlighted the problems he faced, the inference being that he has been playing to help the team, rather than help himself.He added: “I will try to play through and help the team as much as possible. If the coach needs me to be there I will try to be as ready as possible.
“Sometimes, you can’t. You have to let your body dictate what you can and can’t do. Sometimes I am pushing myself too much and need to chill.
“I have not missed a lot of games, which is important. I am still showing up for the team. I am not going to dwell too much on the past. I’m back now, off the mark and now I am focused on getting points.”
As Villa hit the home straight, they are four points adrift of fourth-placed Chelsea. They maintained a lofty position in the Premier League throughout the whole of last season but have found that difficult to replicate this time around.
However, Bailey highlighted how close they are to jumping back into contention for a top-four berth. He said: “Sometimes you struggle. But the most important thing is we are still there.
“This is a team showing character and sometimes you have teams who do well one season and fall off completely in the second. We are still there, we are still in the race, still competing to finish in the European positions.
“We are really happy with our process so far but we know we have a long way to go. But we are confident we can be there.
“This was our first win of 2025 and we hope we can get back to where we need to be. The first half wasn’t the best part of the season but hopefully we can turn things around and get back to where we need to be.”
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