January 2021: Aged 19, becomes the 297th Villa Youth player to graduate to the first-team squad.

Michael Tait, a midfielder, appeared as an unused substitute on one occasion during Villa’s 2020-21 FA Cup campaign.

Michael was born on 29 January 2001 and signed professional forms with Villa in July 2019 aged 18.

Tait was appointed to Sean Verity’s Under 18 squad before being promoted to Mark Delaney’s Under 23 squad from the 2019-20 season. Delaney then promoted Tait to the first team squad aged 19 for the 1-4 FA Cup defeat to Liverpool on Friday, 8 January 2021. That would prove to be Sohna’s only first team squad appearance for the club.

Tait was part of the youngest ever squad to be named by Villa for a professional game - aged 18.30 years on average - after the first team squad was forced into isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic which had seen a raft of players and staff testing positive for the virus in the week preceding the game.

Tait made his unused substitute appearance under caretaker manager Mark Delaney after Villa boss Dean Smith was required to join the first team in isolation.

It was announced in April 2021 that Tait would be released by the club at the end of the 2020-21 season. Tait’s release followed a ‘technical board meeting’ on March 16 2021 between Academy Manager Mark Harrison, Dean Smith, Mark Delaney, Chief Executive Christian Purslow and Sporting Director Johan Lange against a back drop of a significant scale-up in the club’s academy operations with a view to developing a continuing flow of first team talent over the coming decade.