Ashley Young's emergence as a major influence with Fabio Capello's England showed the livewire forward is made for the big stage.
Having unluckily missed out on the 2010 World Cup squad with Shaun Wright-Phillips getting the nod instead, his stock grew to such an extent that there was a minor outcry when he was only on the bench for June's Euro 2012 qualifier with Switzerland. As if to ram home his point, he scored a superb equaliser in the Wembley clash and picked up the man-of-the-match award for his 45 minutes' work.
By then, Sir Alex Ferguson's mind had been made up and a deal was announced with Aston Villa
later in the month as the former Watford winger only had a year left on his contract with the Midlanders.
Young's career has been on a steadily upward curve after suffering the blow of being on the brink of being released as a youngster at Vicarage Road. He showed great courage and tenacity to force the Hornets to change their mind, and prove them hopelessly wrong, and became subject of a bidding war - eventually won by Villa in 2007.
The fee, rising to almost £10million, was declared far too steep by those supposedly in the know but it soon started looking like a bargain. Flourishing at Villa Park, he
