{"id":736837,"date":"2026-08-13T16:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T16:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/736837\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T16:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T16:10:12","slug":"youri-tielemans-apologises-to-aston-villa-fans-after-suggesting-manchester-united-is-a-bigger-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/736837\/","title":{"rendered":"Youri Tielemans apologises to Aston Villa fans after suggesting Manchester United is a bigger club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Youri Tielemans has apologised to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/teams\/aston-villa\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aston Villa<\/a> fans after suggesting he had moved to a bigger club in Premier League rivals <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-united\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester United<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Belgium midfielder, 29, moved to Old Trafford this summer on a five-year deal from Villa when United triggered a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/c9929gzdl2go\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a335m release clause<\/a> in his contract. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tielemans spent three years at Villa Park after joining from Leicester City in 2023, making 134 appearances and scoring 10 goals. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Speaking during United&#8217;s pre-season tour, Tielemans praised Villa for putting him &#8220;back to my best level&#8221;, before adding: &#8220;But there are clubs above Villa, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-united\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester United<\/a> is one of them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Some Villa fans were unhappy with Tielemans&#8217; comments, so he took to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/youritielemans\/?hl=en\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram, external<\/a> to clear the air. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Never meant for my words in the press yesterday to offend anyone or the institution of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/teams\/aston-villa\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aston Villa<\/a> Football Club, which I massively respect and I&#8217;m grateful for the past 3 years,&#8221; he wrote on Thursday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I must however admit my mistake and apologise for my choice of words, will be more careful in the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Wishing the club the best in the future.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Youri Tielemans has apologised to Aston Villa fans after suggesting he had moved to a bigger club in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-736837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}