Player #931 for Aston Villa, Thomas David Heaton, known as Tom Heaton played as a goalkeeper for the club in the 2019-20 season. Heaton was the 101st custodian of the Villa goal in professional football.

Tom was born in Chester on 15 April 1986 and made his Villa debut squad at the age of 33 in the opening day of the 2019-20 Premier League season against Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday, 10 August 2019.

Villa had signed Tom from Burnley in August 2019 for a fee of £7,920,000, and he was an ever-present in the Premier League until sustaining an ACL injury against his former club Burnley on 1st January 2020.

That injury ruled Tom out until the 2020-21 season, and across his initial 20 games had conceded 35 goals at a rate of 1.75 goals per game. Those figures left Tom languishing in the statistical table of ‘keeper performance however, his actual play and ability in goal had seen a series of excellent saves throughout the season, meaning his loss was a real blow to Villa for the final half of his debut season.

Heaton continued his recovery from injury and began training again in November 2020 with a view to being in first-team contention before the year’s end.

Unfortunately, however, Villa had signed the excellent Emi Martinez as their new No. 1, giving Heaton another big fight to regain his place in the team.

Tom made his first squad appearance as the unused goalkeeping substitute in the Boxing Day 2020 triumph over Crystal Palace, but would not play for the club again and left on a free transfer at the end of the 2020-21 season.