Chris Herd

Aston Villa

Born in Melbourne and raised in Perth, Western Australia, Herd started his youth career at ECU Joondalup, and frequently trained with English club Southampton, which had close links to Joondalup. However, Southampton decided that he was too small. Joondalup released him at the age of 14. Herd signed for Aston Villa from Australian club Bayswater City SC in February 2005, along with fellow Australian Shane Lowry, initially in a deal that was made up of a two-year Youth Training Scheme followed by him signing a one-year professional contract with the club. He made 19 appearances and scored twice for Aston Villa Reserves during his Youth Training Scheme campaign, as well as 21 appearances and one goal for the academy. Herd was also part of the squad that won the HKFC Philips Lighting International Soccer Sevens in May 2007 and was rewarded with a two-year contract following the success. He played in various positions in his early career, most notably in central midfield and on the right wing. However, he was heavily deployed at right-back in the 2007–08 Reserve season. In July 2008, Herd was awarded with a new two-year deal. On 17 December 2008, he was selected on the bench for Villa's UEFA Cup match against Hamburger SV in Germany. In January 2008, Herd signed on a one-month loan deal (subsequently extended) for Port Vale, and made his debut in the following match against Millwall. Herd received the first red card of his career in early February 2008, as…

Herd was selected in Australia's final under-20 Squad for the 2009 FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Egypt. As both of his parents are Scottish, Herd was eligible to represent Scotland. In September 2011, his agent Darren Jackson and former agent Phil Williams confirmed that Scotland manager Craig Levein was aware of this and had been following the player's development. His father Willie said he had encouraged his son to play for Scotland, but that he was likely to reject any approaches in favour of continuing to represent Australia. He received his first call-up to the Australia senior squad in November 2011, when he was selected for the World Cup Qualification matches against Oman and Thailand, but had to withdraw from the squad because of injury. He was called up again in August 2012. However, he was forced to withdraw from the squad due to a quadriceps strain. He later revealed that he had fallen out with head coach Holger Osieck and had to wait until Ange Postecoglou took charge before returning to the side. Herd made his debut for Australia in a friendly against Belgium on 4 September 2014. Herd was named as part of Australia's squad for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup. However, Herd injured his Achilles tendon in a training session before the match against Oman, ruling him out for the remainder of the tournament. Australia went on to win the tournament for the first time after beating South Korea in the final.

Club

International

Australia

AFC Asian Cup: 2015