Au Revoir
As expected, Jordon Amavi has sealed a move from Aston Villa, joining Olympique de Marseille on loan with a view to a permanent deal.
The fee is undisclosed at the time of writing, and it will be interesting to know if it eventually will be anywhere near the reported £9m mark that Villa trumped up for him.
His supposed ‘failed medical’ at Sevilla put a shadow over the player, so without any real clarity on the situation, it’s possible the reasons behind that were used to leverage a better deal by Marseille, hence the loan season first.
Although, with reported four bidders for the left-back’s services (according to Tony Xia), any price surely wouldn’t have dropped too low.
Ultimately, the concept of Jordan Amavi was better than the player we saw most of the time on the pitch.
False Dawns
Amavi had joined Villa to be a Premier League player, but a serious knee injury, obtained while on duty with the French U-21’s, didn’t help the player or team that season, as Villa got relegated.
Having Amavi in the Championship was seen at the start of the season to be a big bonus, but the left-back rarely impressed and seemed shy of his earlier confidence.
He also had question marks over his defensive qualities, which prompted Steve Bruce to sign the services of Neil Taylor from Swansea.
Bruce was after a more reliable and practical defender and the Welshman’s arrival seemed to spell the end for the French man.
Marsaille have been following the progress of Amavi for a while now and reportedly bid for him in the January window. They finally got their man, who should prosper again playing back in the French league.
Now Villa will have to consider drafting in a backup in the left-back position. Norweign left-back Thomas Grøgaard is currently being considered as one of the options.
Bye-cuna
It looks like Leandro Bacuna will go from Boo-cuna to Bye-cuna within the space of a week.
“There’s a Championship club after Bacuna,” said Bruce to the TV cameras, after the Colchester game. “That looks close to being over the line too.”
The Villa boss had left Bacuna out of the travelling party to the League Cup game at Colchester.
It seems that it’s fellow countryman Jaap Stam and Reading that haven’t given up on the Dutch midfielder, who is now plying his international trade for Curacao.
With the weekend’s games fast approaching, you’d expect this deal to be rushed through, so Bacuna would qualify to play at the weekend.
The fee should be north of £1.5m, if earlier reports connecting him to Reading are to believed.
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I personally preferred Amavi to Taylor, as in my opinion he didn’t do a bad job for us at left back, and was more of a positive player going forward, something that Taylor sadly lacks at times. I feel Hogan will come good, and does not let up in his effort to score more, but desperately needs better service. He and O’Hare made for a good partnership v Colchester, something i’d like to see more regular as things stand at the moment with Kodjia still out injured. I’m not so enthusiastic about Agbonlahor. who is good for the first 45 mins but lacks energy in the second half of matches. Having some decent young strikers in the U 23’s and with the likes of O’Hare and one or two others we’re looking good for the future, however I hope all these youngsters ( more so O’Hare who is something special) get game time this coming season.
Sadly I think we’ve lost a very decent player, so now we need another left back, and desperate for another striker to back up Kodjia, not much confidence in Hogan. Pleased to see a couple of youngsters playing the other night and thought they did very well. Don’t know what to think about the Cardiff game hard to call.