Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has surprisingly named Aston Villa as the team that impressed him most in the opening weekend of the new Premier League season.

Recall that after the first round of Premier League fixtures, Aston Villa sits bottom of the table after losing 5-1 against Newcastle United at St James’ Park over the weekend.

Despite the outcome of the encounter, Ferguson was massively impressed with what he saw from Aston Villa and felt Unai Emery’s side were very unfortunate to be on the wrong side of the result.

Asked which team had impressed him most after match-day one fixtures, Ferguson told NBC Sports: “To be honest with you, I watched Aston Villa against Newcastle, and I can’t believe the scoreline.

“Honestly, Aston Villa played fantastic football and just lost bad goals.

“Newcastle are going to be very difficult to beat in their own ground in particular and the manager [Eddie Howe] has done a great job there.

“But it is a surprising game of football. I mean, you can play teams off the pitch but you don’t score and that is what happened to Aston Villa.”