{"id":7909,"date":"2026-01-30T06:12:41","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T00:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/01\/30\/who-is-shy-and-nervous-villa-match-winner-jimoh-aloba\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T06:12:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T00:42:41","slug":"who-is-shy-and-nervous-villa-match-winner-jimoh-aloba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/01\/30\/who-is-shy-and-nervous-villa-match-winner-jimoh-aloba\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is &#8216;shy and nervous&#8217; Villa match-winner Jimoh-Aloba?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/topics\/cd11vgpeq9vt\">Nick Mashiter<\/a>Football reporter<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published8 minutes ago<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#comments\">1 Comments<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/aston-villa\">Aston Villa<\/a> match-winner Jamaldeen Jimoh-Aloba was described as &quot;shy and nervous&quot; by team-mate Morgan Rogers &#8211; but the teenager has announced himself on the European stage. <\/p>\n<p>The 19-year-old&#x27;s late goal sealed Villa&#x27;s <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/live\/cm2yrq0m715t\">3-2 comeback victory<\/a> against Red Bull Salzburg on Thursday to help them finish second in the Europa League league phase.<\/p>\n<p>At the final whistle Amadou Onana pushed Jimoh-Aloba towards the Holte End for a series of fist bumps, each greeted by cheers from the home support.<\/p>\n<p>With Ollie Watkins coming off with a first-half hamstring injury and a below-par Villa 2-0 down early in the second half, Unai Emery&#x27;s side needed a hero.<\/p>\n<p>Jimoh-Aloba, who made his Premier League debut last month, came off the bench in the 66th minute and netted a fine winner with just three minutes remaining &#8211; after Rogers and Tyrone Mings had got Villa back into the game. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#x27;s a proud moment for me on my European debut,&quot; Jimoh-Aloba told TNT Sports after the match.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Really nice to make my family proud. I&#x27;ve had a lot of lows this season and a lot of highs but this is top. My mum is in the stand somewhere.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>&#x27;I&#x27;ve taken a shine to him&#x27;<\/h2>\n<p>England playmaker Rogers was in West Bromwich Albion&#x27;s academy at the same time as Jimoh-Aloba &#8211; and believes the teenager will come out of his shell. <\/p>\n<p>Rogers told BBC Sport: &quot;It&#x27;s a really nice moment for him, he works hard in training and gives his all. He is probably a bit shy and nervous more than I&#x27;d like but he shows his quality in training. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;We know he&#x27;s got the ability, it&#x27;s about applying himself. I knew he was locked in and engaged and that&#x27;s what we want from him.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Sometimes he can get a bit disengaged &#8211; that&#x27;s where you can probably lose it. As a young player I was exactly the same, when you get older you are focused more. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;He was focused the moment he came on and it was a really nice moment for him. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;ve taken a shine to him, he&#x27;s a really nice kid and we like when we train with him and want him to do well.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>With Boubacar Kamara, John McGinn and Youri Tielemans all out injured, Emery handed 18-year-old midfielder George Hemmings his full Villa debut while academy graduate Kadan Young also came off the bench. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#x27;s very important to have chances to play the young players, the opportunity for them to show their progress. I think they did a very good job,&quot; Emery said. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;We have a plan with them. We need to protect them when they are playing. We need as well to get a plan in their development as a player &#8211; every day training with us and then in official matches like today. It was fantastic how we did everything.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>Who is Jimoh-Aloba?<\/h2>\n<p>The teenager joined Villa from West Brom in 2023 when he was 16 and was already an England Under-16 and Under-17 international.<\/p>\n<p>He made his senior debut as a substitute in the Carabao Cup win at Wycombe in September 2024 and a year ago was included in Villa&#x27;s Premier League squad against Leicester.<\/p>\n<p>The attacking midfielder signed a long-term deal at Villa in October 2024 and helped them lift the FA Youth Cup last season, scoring in the final against <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-city\">Manchester City<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A league debut came just last month in the 4-1 defeat at <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/arsenal\">Arsenal<\/a>, while he also featured in the Carabao Cup defeat by <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/brentford\">Brentford<\/a> in September.<\/p>\n<h2>Related topics<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/europa-league\">Europa League<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/aston-villa\">Aston Villa<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/premier-league\">Premier League<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\">Football<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>More on this story<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/articles\/c62015dell5o\">\n<p>Europa League: What happened in final league phase games?<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published25 minutes ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/aston-villa\">\n<p>Latest Aston Villa news, analysis and fan views<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/send\/u211222473\">\n<p>Ask about Aston Villa &#8211; what do you want to know?<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who is &#x27;shy and nervous&#x27; Villa match-winner Jimoh-Aloba?Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Jamaldeen Jimoh-Aloba started his youth career with West Brom before joining Aston Villa in 2&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}