Player #890 for Aston Villa, Pierluigi Gollini, played as a goalkeeper for the club in 2016-17, making twenty appearances.

Gollini was the 96th custodian of the Villa goal in professional football.

Gollini was born in Bologna on 18 March 1995 and was signed under Roberto Di Matteo from Hellas Verona for €5.00m on 8 July 2016.

Gollini made his debut appearance for Villa on Sunday, 7 August 2016, aged 21, in the opening day Championship defeat at Sheffield Wednesday and would go on to keep goal for Villa across twenty consecutive Championship games, including ten under the short-lived Di Matteo’s successor, Steve Bruce.

Across his twenty appearances, Gollini conceded just 17 goals at an excellent ratio of 0.85 goals per game whilst keeping five clean sheets, but he would make his final appearance for Villa on Tuesday, 13 December 2016 in the 0-1 Championship defeat at Norwich City.

Given his figures and consistent selection in the first team, it was a surprise for Gollini to lose the favour of new boss Steve Bruce so quickly; however, it was revealed that he was unhappy with the departure of his Italian goalkeeping coach under Di Matteo and was shipped out on loan to Atalanta B.C. from13 January 2017 to 30 June 2018 ahead of a permanent move in July 2018 in return for a fee of €4.40m.

Before his departure, however, Bruce favoured the far less capable Mark Bunn with Gollini relegated to the bench ahead of the arrival of Sam Johnstone on loan from Manchester United, who, thankfully, like Gollini, posted goal concession statistics that Villa hadn’t seen for decades.

Gollini played under Roberto Di Matteo and Steve Bruce.