Amavi Out
As MOMS first feared, Jordan Amavi has been confirmed by the club to be out for the rest of the season due to the ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee he picked up on international duty for the France U-21’s.
It will come as a bitter disappointment for new Aston Villa boss Rémi Garde to lose the fan-favourite, after selecting Amavi in his first back-four selection which performed well against Manchester City. Now the Villa boss will being ruing his limited options to replace the French 21-year-old. With Aly Cissokho and Joe Bennett out on season-long loans, he’s left with Kieran Richardson, or possibly playing Ciaran Clark, Jolean Lescott or José Ángel Crespo in the left-back berth.
Such limited options won’t exactly comfort Garde and the six-weeks until the January window can’t come soon enough, when even just loaning in a decent left-back surely will be considered.
Still, there is little time to wallow in excuses and considering Amavi has only played 12 games for Villa to date, his loss will not be pivotal to whether Villa survive or not.
Lambert off the Dole Queue
As mooted earlier in the week, ex-Villa boss Paul Lambert finally has a new job after taking up the reigns at Blackburn Rovers. Lambert walks into a club faced with a Financial Fair Play embargo, with Rovers unable to buy players since December 2014 for not meeting the Football League’s Fair Play Requirement. The club are currently 16th in the Championship.
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Should i mention Albrighton or Weimann … God knows what goes on in football sometimes? Seems that all arrows point in the same direction … Money! … I’m sure both would be welcome now … Lets face it Albrighton [although not the finished article] was a lot more exciting than ‘chicken head’ Bacuna [square peg in a round hole]. Plus he could put a bloody good cross in [not to mention an innovative pass] … As for Weinmann. Well should i go further than mentioning Gestede? … A great header of the ball, but with a shot of a defender … Unlike someone who was two footed, intelligent and a burst of pace [that was waisted on the wings].
Back to the subject … Crespo and the lad from Liverpool would probably suffice UTV! …. PS I think i main concern should be with strikers, and not the defense.
Surely when a team loans its players to another club, whether it is for a month or a full season, the simple logic of including a return clause in case of injuries as part of the deal must apply. Losing Amavi has meant that we are without a single genuine left back. Clearly Sherwood thought that Richardson was adequate cover in this position but I don’t agree. Other teams target him time and time again as a point of weakness. Maybe Crespo could do a job but he is not left footed. Clark needs to stay at centre back and Lescott simply does not have the legs to play at full back. Meanwhile Bennett is kicking his heals at Bournemouth and Cissokho has had limited time at Porto. Neither of them are in the same class as Amavi but at least they are genuine left backs. The fact that the club is unable to recall either of these players considering how little game time they have been given by their loan clubs, is utterly ridiculous. Is this just part and parcel of all loan deals or is it just that Villa were too stupid to include a return clause? More than likely the latter is true. Maybe if the loan club agrees to terminate the deal with the parent club then the player can return? Or would the Premier League have something to say about this?