Matty Cash, the Championship right-back that amazes the English Premier League

Sometimes there can be a lot of unfair judgment when it comes to football players. Some football fans can have a very elitist perception of things and that can lead to some mistaken assessments, especially in the matter of the players’ origins and the careers they had before gaining a degree of attention. And our protagonist today, Matty Cash, is a prime example of that.

When Aston Villa signed Nottingham Forest right-back Matty Cash, there wasn’t a lot of fanfare or a lot of media attention. After all, this was a team that escaped relegation in the last day of the previous English Premier League season and Matty Cash wasn’t a player that was stealing headlines in the Championship, where Nottingham Forest have struggled in recent years.

At 16 million pounds, though, there was reason to be concerned with because this was a somewhat hefty amount of money for a somewhat unknown Championship player during times of a pandemic. And considering that British players are usually undermined in their home soil, mostly as a way to hit back at the media that fails to criticize them, there wasn’t a lot of expectation when it came to the signing of Matty Cash. But things have been far better than expected for both Cash and Aston Villa, with the Birmingham club fighting in the English Premier League and the English right-back being one of the best players in the squad so far this season and certainly one of the best right-backs in this current edition of the English Premier League.

And yet, there isn’t a lot of talk about Matty Cash, at least compared to other players that have surprised so far this season. I consider that a big shame because he is a player that has proven to be very capable in both the Championship and the English Premier League, showing that he could do the transition from one division to the other in an almost flawless manner. Some players, especially the British ones, don’t get a fair assessment, at least from my perspective. This is mostly due to the fact that some fans believe they are overrated by the media and way too protected, but I personally think that is making those players a disservice, especially in the case of Matty Cash, whose progress has been quite notorious.

Good players are good players. Nationalities don’t matter. And that is something worth taking into account when analyzing because people in general tend to go with the most superficial reasons to judge a player, which usually ends up being quite unfair. I use Matty Cash as an example because I think he is a great player that is not getting the credit he deserves in Aston Villa’s great season. Until now.