Aston Villa announce squad numbers for 2016-17 season

This morning via Twitter, Aston Villa confirmed squad numbers for the 2016-17 Football League Championship season.

Here are a couple of observations, more follow beneath the Tweet:

-Tommy Elphick inherits the number 6 shirt previously used by Ciaran Clark.

-Aaron Tshibola will be the fourth central midfielder in as many years to wear number 8 for Aston Villa (Idrissa Gana Gueye, Tom Cleverley, Karim El Ahmadi).

-Jack Grealish has kept the 40 jersey.

New squad numbers: Our list for 2016/17. #AVFC #FightLikeLions pic.twitter.com/zhTQT8mxiG

— Aston Villa FC (@AVFCOfficial) August 5, 2016

-Pierluigi Gollini takes the goalkeeper's traditional number 1 kit over following Brad Guzan's departure. I was hoping he'd keep 95 (the number he wore at Hellas Verona, also the year of his birth) but that isn't the case. I don't think the Championship has a rule preventing players from wearing such a high shirt number, unlike La Liga, where squad numbers 1-25 are assigned to registered players, with youth players permitted to wear higher numbers.

-Rudy Gestede and Aly Cissokho were two players that moved down as far as the number goes. Gestede traded 39 for 14, Cissokho swapped 43 for Charles N'Zogbia's former Bomb Squad shirt, 28. Will this translate to more playing time for either?

-Jordan Ayew takes over the number 10 shirt, leaving 19 for youngster André Green, made famous by Stan Petrov.

-Ross McCormack takes number 44. Maybe they had already printed the sheet before his transfer was confirmed?

-Libor Kozák drops down from 27 to 18.

Have you drawn any of your own conclusions based on the number assigned to a particular player? Or do you feel that shirt numbers are just shirt numbers. Let us know in the comments, or over on Facebook or Twitter!