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Matty Cash has never played better than he is right now – it’s time for Aston Villa fans to accept it

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Rent controls can be a thorny subject but if something isn’t done about Matty Cash’s tenancy in the heads of Tottenham Hotspur fans someone is going to end up out of pocket.

The Aston Villa right-back is an unpopular figure at the Tottenham Hotspur, where he’s still booed and jeered for 90 minutes every time he plays there because of some absolute non-incident that occurred what feels like a lifetime ago.

Cash has become a target for Spurs supporters and it was quite delicious to watch along on Sunday afternoon as he conjured up a glorious volleyed pass from the middle of the pitch that made Villa’s winner in a 2-1 Premier League victory.

His criticism usually doesn’t emanate from opposition supporters, Spurs aside, but from his own. For much of his time at Villa, the former Nottingham Forest man has served as anything between maligned defender and full-blown scapegoat for a section of Villa fans.

As always, there’s nuance in those opinions. Questioning Cash’s defensive abilities at the highest level isn’t outlandish or unfair. There are weaknesses in his game with and without the ball, no doubt.

But the reflexive need to seethe at the mere mention of his name, to use him as a punchline, has always seemed to me to be an unwarranted level of negativity.

Cash has generally been a solid performer whose average level has just about kept him from being an upgrade priority in the transfer market.

He can have the odd substandard spell and what his outright mistakes lack in frequency they tend to make up for in severity, but he’s a much better player than his most vocal critics give him credit for. The way Cash has performed in 2025/26 even with the team in bad shape early on has been an impressive show of mental strength too.

Cash is in the form of his Villa career

He might not be one for the spectacular but Cash has been coming up with big moments this season. He has a couple of cracking Poland goals to his name and scored Villa’s first in the Premier League with a scorching hit even if one of the better goalkeepers so far this season will feel he should have saved it.

The pass to pick out Lucas Digne, whose own fabulous contribution to Emi Buendía‘s winning goal at Spurs deserves praise too, was out of this world. Sure, there was an element of playing the percentages. But he found the right area with the right type of pass thanks to unreal technique, and it worked out beautifully.

One outstanding pass is only part of Cash’s input this season. He’s never been as bad as some Villa fans have made out but he’s never been quite as good as this, nor as consistent.

Long may it continue. Cash has been at Villa for five years. He has established himself as a Premier League player in that time having never played in it before.

He grafts for the team in every single match, takes a load of over-the-top criticism regardless of how he plays, and has turned it into the highest quality, most impactful run of his career.

The post Matty Cash has never played better than he is right now – it’s time for Aston Villa fans to accept it appeared first on AVillaFan.com – Aston Villa Fan Site.

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