Player #899 for Aston Villa, Samuel Luke Johnstone, played as a goalkeeper for the club in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 Football League Championship campaigns. Johnstone was the 97th custodian of the Villa goal in professional football.

Johnstone was born in Preston on 25 March 1993.

Steve Bruce had initially signed Johnstone for Villa on loan from Manchester United from 5 January 2017 until 31 May 2017 after having decided Villa’s other goalkeeping options Pierluigi Gollini and Mark Bunn were not up to the grade and Jed Steer and Matija Šarkić needed more experience out on loan.

Johnstone made his competitive debut for Villa at the age of 23 in the FA Cup defeat to Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, 8 January 2017.

During his debut season, Johnstone made 22 appearances, quickly becoming Villa’s first-choice keeper, and conceded just 26 goals at an excellent ratio of 1.18 goals per game.

Such had been Johnstone’s impact that Villa approached Manchester United to take the ‘keeper back on loan for the entirety of the 2017-18 campaign, and they were richly rewarded by some excellent goalkeeping displays from the young stopper.

Across his 70 appearances, Johnstone conceded just 68 goals at an excellent ratio of 0.97 goals per game whilst keeping 30 clean sheets - 43% of his games for the club.

Villa were expected to sign Johnstone on a permanent deal regardless of whether they won the 2017-18 Play Off Final against Fulham; however, following the revelation of the dire financial straits of the club, there was no opportunity to make signings, least of all of the quality of Johnstone, and he was regretfully snapped up elsewhere.