page_title: Shaun Maloney
section_title: Aston Villa
hierarchical_section_title: Shaun Maloney / Playing career / Aston Villa
caption_attribution_description: Shaun Maloney. Image cropped from original at flickr.
context_page_description: Shaun Richard Maloney is a Scottish former professional football player, who is now employed as a coach with the Belgium national team. He played for Celtic for over ten years during his playing career. Maloney also played for Aston Villa, Wigan Athletic, Chicago Fire, Hull City and the Scotland national team as an attacking midfielder or winger. Since retiring as a player, Maloney has worked for Celtic and the Belgium national team as a coach.
  Maloney started his career at Celtic, playing 215 matches across all competitions and winning honours including five Scottish Premier League titles. He was the first player to claim both the SPFA Players' Player of the Year and the SPFA Young Player of the Year awards in the same season, doing so in 2005/06. He had a spell in the Premier League with Aston Villa, before returning for a second spell at Celtic. Maloney returned to English football in 2011 with Wigan Athletic, helping them win the 2013 FA Cup Final. Maloney then briefly played in Major League Soccer for Chicago Fire. He last played for Hull City for two seasons, before retiring due to injury in 2017.
context_section_description: Just before the transfer window closed on 31 January 2007, Maloney signed a pre-contract agreement with Aston Villa. Villa manager Martin O'Neill, who managed him at Celtic, was keen to bring Maloney to Villa for the second half of the season however and moments before the deadline he signed for the Midlands club for a reported fee of £1 million. He made his debut in the 2–0 defeat at Reading on 10 February 2007 On 28 April 2007, Maloney scored his first Villa goal in a victory against Man City at the City of Manchester Stadium from a free kick which was curled around the wall into the bottom right of the goal.
  Maloney had trouble settling into the club but after a somewhat lacklustre start to his Villa career, he began to show his best form. Maloney has acknowledged that his football had been suffering but remained optimistic about his future at the club: "Homesickness has affected my form. I haven't played well enough to play in the team and I think that has shown, so hopefully now things can change." Both O'Neill and teammate Stiliyan Petrov, who were both at Celtic during Maloney's time there, had expressed their desire for Maloney to stay at the club despite reports linking him with a move back to Scotland.
  Maloney scored a brace for Aston Villa in a 4–4 draw with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day 2007. However, after that Maloney did not play a lot of matches as half of his last season appearances were substitutions, and he also said that he would like to one day go back and play in Scotland.
caption: Maloney before an Aston Villa game in 2007
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