Aston Villa putting four past Brentford, who saw that coming? Two goals inside the first seven minutes for the first time in Villa’s Premier League history, a clean sheet and a performance to the satisfaction of the Villa Park crowd.
It was a great response from the players after their 3-0 defeat at Fulham in midweek and the man who orchestrated the commanding victory was a coach you may not be familiar with, Aaron Danks.
READ MORE:
-
Cristiano Ronaldo to Chelsea would improve revenue streams but not the team
-
The six England Premier League strikers battling it out to go to the World Cup
In the aftermath of Steven Gerrard losing his position as manager and most of the backroom staff going with him, Danks was tasked with leading first-team duties until Villa had found a suitable replacement.
He couldn’t have gotten off to a better start, which would suggest he knows exactly what he is doing - as his impressive CV shows.
The 37-year-old's vocation in coaching started in 2005 when he joined the West Bromwich Albion academy, with whom he worked for over a decade. He left the Baggies in 2016 when he was selected by the Football Association to assume the role of head of specialist coaching and lead offensive specialist coach across different age groups of the England national team, following his former academy manager Dan Ashworth to St George's Park.
Danks was one of the key coaches who developed the ‘England Playbook’ in 2016-17, which broke down the game into phases in possession, out of possession, transition and goalkeeping. Matt Crocker, who was the head of coaching in the brand new department, labelled Danks a "pioneer" in that field.
As part of his work in the specialist area, Danks went on a study trip to visit the Golden State Warriors and was able to talk his way into spending a full day with the NBA club’s coaches. This then led to him spending time in the locker room ahead of a big NBA play-off match and he even helped their star Steph Curry with his three-point shooting pre-match, alongside Curry’s individual development coach.
Once Ashworth and Crocker left the FA, the department was disbanded. Danks spent a brief period assisting Aidy Boothroyd with the England under-21s before leaving the UK to assist Vincent Kompany at Anderlecht in July 2021.
He spent just two months with the Belgian outfit before he was offered the opportunity to return to his hometown of Birmingham to take up the role of Dean Smith’s first-team coach at Villa. When Smith was replaced by Gerrard shortly after, Danks maintained his position as part of the backroom staff until he was given caretaker charge of the team last week when the ex-Rangers manager was relieved of his duties.
His has not been a common path to Premier League management, but the early signs suggest he might have taken a successful route to the ultimate coaching spotlight.
