Jimmy Shan hails 'special' Aston Villa team after superb FA Youth Cup win

A stunning goal from Cole Brannigan was highlight of a superb performance, which saw Villa end their opponents’ 27-match winning run in front of 25,073 fans at Villa Park.

City, unbeaten for six months, took the lead inside two minutes through Matty Warhurst but the hosts immediately hit back through TJ Carroll.

Brannigan then put them in front with the sweetest of strikes from outside the box, before Jamaldeen Jimoh-Aloba also scored from distance to ensure Villa lifted the Youth Cup for the fifth time in club history, four years after they last triumphed in 2021.

Shan, lead coach of the club’s under-18s, said: “With this group in the FA Youth Cup, it’s a mixed group. 

“A lot of the boys spend time with the Under-21s, but the core group of the U18s and when these boys come in too, they have got something special about them.

“They work together, there’s a togetherness and they want to work hard. They find a way and they’ve done that on the biggest stage in their young careers.”

The final whistle sparked wild celebrations, with the team then parading the cup in front of a packed Holte End.

But with the under-18s back in action on Thursday when they face Leicester, Shan warned they could not afford to get too carried away.

Villa need just two points from their remaining two matches to win the league and Shan said: “They are still partying, jumping around and playing music that isn’t my cup of tea. They are buzzing. 

“The way our fixtures have gone in the under-18s, we still have two left. They can’t enjoy it.

“We are in tomorrow, we have a cool down and the lads who haven’t played many minutes will be on the grass and then we will be out on Thursday.

“They can’t probably enjoy it as much as if it was the last game of the season, then they could really enjoy it. 

“Even some of the lads in there now are showing maturity because some of their conversations with their peers are, ‘we need to make sure Thursday is right’. So they are readying themselves for Thursday now.”