Conor Hourihane: Experience could pay off for Aston Villa in promotion run-in

The average age of Villa’s squad is one of the highest in the division, with Steve Bruce’s team skippered by 37-year-old John Terry.

Albert Adomah, Robert Snodgrass, Mile Jedinak and Glenn Whelan are meanwhile among several key performers aged 30 and above.

Midfielder Hourihane, who at 25 is one the team’s younger stars, believes such depths of experience in will help as the pressure ramps up during the final months of the season.

“It’s key. The gaffer has huge experience at this level, he’s won a lot of promotions in his career. It will tell,” he said.

“People like JT (Terry), Snoddy, people like that. People who have been winning titles. That will hopefully set us in a good way.”

Bruce signed Terry last summer in hoping the former England skipper’s approach would influence the rest of the team.

According to Hourihane, that is precisely what has happened.

“If you can’t learn off him (Terry), then you’re struggling really,” he said.

“When he first signed I was a bit like ‘Jesus, we’ve got John Terry’. I was a bit starstruck.

“Now he is a team-mate and a friend. To have him in the the dressing room every day, the standards he sets every day is top, top class.

“It rubs off on other lads. If you don’t feed off it, you never will."

He continued: “There is huge experience in the dressing room for the likes of myself to look up to. I have come from League Two all the way up.

“Other lads have been at the top of the game for so many years.

“It is a pleasure to work with them every day, trying to learn off them every single day, bits and pieces which can help me along. It’s a joy to play with them.”