Ashley is a Stevenage-born player whose speedy wing-play sets up countless goals for team-mates. He joined local League club Watford after initially being turned away by their Academy and Hornets boss Ray Lewington gave him his Division One debut as a substitute against Millwall when he was 18. He scored in that game and contributed two more in four further substitute appearances in the 2003-04 season.
He was ‘Young Player of the Season’ in 2004-05 and in the next campaign scored 15 Championship goals as Watford won promotion via the play-offs under Aidy Boothroyd. He seemed set to be a West Ham United player in the January window of 2007 but it was Aston Villa who signed him and he was very close to being a Premier League ever-present in his first two full seasons, notching 16 goals from the left wing.
Ashley was capped ten times for England’s Under-21s and made his senior bow as a substitute for Joe Cole in a friendly against Austria in Vienna on 16 November 2007. He made a second substitute appearance in Fabio Capello’s first game in charge and was handed his first start in the Holland friendly in Amsterdam in August 2009.
