Halfhuid -He's Bigger Than Me And You

Shamelessly stolen from the message board, Arsenio's Villa career in a few easy paragraphs.

On January the 7th 2009 it was reported that we'd signed highly rated 17 year old Dutch centre back Arsenio Halfhuid from Excelsior, the haste of which the deal was completed even stunned top Dutch clubs who'd be eyeing him for ages, at the begining of last year he had a mixed start to his Villa career, he picked up injuries and was in and out of the side, but things seem to have changed at the start of this season as he became a reguler in the u18's defence.

Then in September last year something bizarre happened, our u18's were one down to Ipswich and our main strikers had to come off injured, with no obvious replacements u18's coach Tony McAndrew decided to throw 6'4 defender Arsenio upfront as an emergency striker. It paid off handsomely as he went on to score twice and earn his side a 2-2 draw, for a while he went back to playing central defence but his cameo as a striker was never forgotten by McAndrew and Arsenio made his first start as a striker in a tough away trip at West Brom in the FA Youth Cup last month, and again he showed his class by scoring a 30 yard curler into the top corner to win us the game.



Since then he's played three games upfront and scored four goals, three of which came in the youngsters 4-1 win over Millwall last night in the FA Youth Cup, his record playing as a striker is six goals in five games, and his overall goal record this season is nine goals in eleven starts (14 appearances).

After his hattrick yesterday I felt compelled to write a little piece on him because it looks like he could be a real prospect, he only turned 18 in November but when you look at him you'd think he was Carew's twin brother!!

He's massive but he's got decent pace and he seems to have that 'It factor' in front of goal, he's clinical but he can also score a variety of goals, like yesterday for example the first was a diving header, the second he was one on one and finished easily and the third was a first time strike into the top corner in the box.

Looking back in history the one player i can think of who's switched positions like Halfhuid successfully is Kevin Phillips, he was actually released from Southampton at Halfhuid's age because they thought he was too small for a right-back, so it just goes to show that anything can happen in this game.

The kid clearly has an eye for goal and when you couple that with his physical attributes we just might have a star in the making, hopefully he'll get a chance for the reserves soon.

Two of his goals can be seen on the free AVTV section on the Official Site (his goal against West Brom is in the 'FA Youth cup preview' bit and his 3rd goal yesterday is in the 'youth cup reaction' part).

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