Aston Villa 2016-17 player preview: Mark Bunn

With Brad Guzan finally out of the picture, last year’s presumptive third-choice keeper (who became the second-choice [and later became first-choice for a time]) can FINALLY take on the role as Aston Villa’s shot stopper. This is going to be Mark Bunn’s year. The most handsome Villan is going to use that rock-hard body to do nothing but stop shots.

Oh.

Wait.

We signed someone else. And kept Jed Steer around this time. Sorry, Mark, back to backup duty for you.

BUT, if Aston Villa have Mark Bunn as a backup, all is not lost. He’s not great. After all, there is a reason that he didn’t start ahead of Brad Guzan most of last year. But he is perfectly capable, and not someone who is likely to make us panic too much. In 10 league appearances last year, he kept four clean sheets and allowed eighteen goals. Oh, and he was responsible for 66.7% of the club’s league wins.

That’s not world-beating, but if you were to couple it with a competent offense, it’s a formula that could pretty routinely lead to draws and maybe a few wins. So long as Bunn remains a backup, that’s about what the club need.

And if he doesn’t, then we have much larger problems on our hand this year.