Five Aston Villa Players Leaving This Summer?
The forthcoming summer will see Paul Lambert finally complete the rebuilding of Aston Villa in his own image. As well, as being a matter of who he brings in (with the transfer strings expected to be loosened slightly), there’s also the matter of who’s off.
A key part of the Villa bosses strategy has been to work out which of the matured Villa academy graduates to keep and which to ship out. While Barry Bannan and Eric Lichaj were shipped out, Lambert kept his faith in the likes of Nathan Baker and Ciaran Clark, while others wre given the last year of their contract to prove themselves. One of them, despite limited game time, Marc Albrighton, has certainly done more than enough to prove himself worthy of a new deal, but others might not be so lucky.
There’s always causalities when the tough decisions come. Lambert had made his mind up on several players a year ago (aka The Bomb Squad), but due to the weight of their hefty contracts and injuries, it’s been difficult to shift them permanently. This summer will certainly bring a dose of unfinished business to Villa Park.
If you have any of the following player’s names on the back of your Villa shirt, you may be best advised to get a new one. UTV
Chris Herd
With Herd’s recent withdrawal from footballing duties at Aston Villa and also having to decline his international call-up with Australia, it looks pretty terminal for the Aussie utility player.
Paul Lambert is a recognised disciplinarian, so Herd’s off-the-field reputation had him walking a tightrope from the off. We don’t want to throw Herd under the bus here and discuss his off-the-field problems, but they’ve cost him a once in a lifetime World Cup trip to Rio and potentially his Villa contract. If he’s serious about his football, that should help him focus for the rest of his career.
Lets be honest, he was never going to be in the first team of any decent Villa team. A championship player at best.
Gary Gardner
This is written with a heavy heart, but the curtain may be closing on Gardner being Villa’s ‘Great White Hope’. MOMS has always been a big backer of the six foot two midfielder. At youth level, he had vision, great dead-ball ability, goals in him, and with his size and presense, he could have been a future Villa captain. Two injuries totaling almost two years out, have robbed him of key development time and my have also ultimately curbed his potential.
Gardner will be 22 in the summer, so he needs to deliver now, which hasn’t happened whilst he was on loan at Sheffield Wednesday. I can’t see Lambert extending his contract. A year’s extension would be the most he could expect, but it would be wrong to make choices out of sentiment. Sometimes you’ve just got to move on.
Remember Gardner coming on against Chelsea and missing a point-blank header within seconds? I had a weird premonition that day, that if that had buried it, he would have gone onto great things. It was almost as if that was the defining moment to whether he was going to make it at B6.
Charles N’Zogbia
He was on Lambert’s summer cull list, but a bizarre holiday injury ruined his departure from Villa Park. Ever since, news of his mooted return and Lambert hinting N’Zogbia may have a role to play, have suspiciously seemed like smoke and mirrors. MOMS, at least, has never expected to see him play again for Villa.
To be fair to Lambert, he’s never really stated with any certainty, that N’Zogbia would play for Villa again; it’s more the newspaper article headlines that have suggested it, which the quotes don’t back up.
While on social media, we’ve seen N’Zogbia enjoying life spending his unearned wages, his Villa return can be filed away in the same folder marked ‘AWOL’ like Richard Dunne’s was last season.
The big shame about N’Zogbia is we’d have still got a few million for him last summer, but now what club is going to pay anything for a player who hasn’t played for a year and is prone to sulking?
Alan Hutton
Well, we’ve discussed Hutton’s situation at length in a previous feature. He’ll NEVER play for Villa again. What we can add to what we’ve previously said, is MOMS has been informed by the club that £40,000 is wide of the mark, in terms of Hutton’s weekly wage. We’d imagine you could shave at least £10,000 off the earlier reported figure. Thank heavens for small mercies.
Darren Bent
Bent has one season left of his contract to run, when he returns to Villa’s bomb squad after his loan spell at Fulham. Unfortunately, the ex-England striker hasn’t really set Craven Cottage alight, so far. The best case scenario would be for him to fire Fulham to safety in the remaining games, be in-demand once again, and then find a club in the summer.
It’s unlikely Villa will get any fee back for him, even if he did find a club. What started off as Randy Lerner’s biggest present to Aston Villa, has ended very sadly as the biggest financial noose player-wise that the club has ever had. UTV
Given and Delfouneso, and would like to see deals made to sell and replace:
Ciaran Clark and Joe Bennett, in addition to those mentioned above by Kezz Furber, though wasn’t it just the other day Lambert was talking about his hopes for Tonev, so I guess at least that one will stay.
the wages of Hutton are normally stated to be £30k per week. What is I think more worrying are rumours that Lowton is being scouted by three premiership clubs including Fulham and I think Norwich. We do not have strength in depth at right back and Bacuna while very good is best in midfield. Bertrand is not certain to stay, so we are left with Bennett at left back, and he has to cut out the mistakes. I think he is the only villa player sent off during Lambert’s tenure and he rode his luck on Saturday, another ref than Foy would have sent him off for that tackle in the first half.
Long way to go though. Any idea why Herd suddenly vanished off the Ozzie radar? He had a chance to go to the world cup… never known a player to pull out like that
trevor fisher.
Recent newspaper articles all had Hutton at £40k which seemed very odd and off the mark. Herd was picked in the last Australian squad, but withdrawn due to what’s happened with him.
Add Luna, Bowery, Tonev, Sylla and the amazing loanee Holt to that list and we just might ditch the resigned laughter and rekindle the love for our wonderful club.
Obviously, there’s more than five – e.g. Nathan Delfouneso, but just wanted to run five here.
I disagree about Gary Gardner – he is being monitored at Sheff Wed and unless the club can come with a DECENT replacement there should be a place for him in the squad next year…agree with the all rest…
Apparently, he’s returned and Sheff Wed haven’t taken up the option to extend the loan. He was also dropped from their team. Not looking good at the moment for Gardner.