Why Aston Villa should sign Christian Fuchs this month
According to a report in Mirror, Championship side Aston Villa have enquired about signing Leicester City’s Christian Fuchs on loan until the end of this season. Manager Dean Smith has identified the Austrian to help his side make a push for promotion this year.
The 32-year-old has been out of the picture at the King Power Stadium, with Foxes manager Claude Puel preferring Ben Chilwell over him. In all honesty, the latter has done extremely well to take his chance and cement his place in the team very soon.
As per the report, Fuchs was given a pay rise at Leicester after the title-winning season. And the club wants Villa to pay him the wages, worth £60,000-a-week, in order to make the deal happen. Here’s why the Birmingham-based club should do everything to sign the player this month:
Fuchs’ experience and quality would be handy
If we take a look at the Aston Villa squad, they are short on options at left-back. Neil Taylor is the only first-team fullback who can play in that position. In the Welshman’s absence, Alan Hutton has had to play there. However, this is not an ideal solution.
Hence, it makes sense for the club and the manager to look for a player who can play in that position and also help the team in other ways. Fuchs is a quality left-back who already has a Premier League winners’ medal to show for.
Since then, he hasn’t been at his best but the propensity is still there, and now the added advantage of being an experienced players aids a lot. Villa can use the 32-year-old in different ways as he can play as a wing-back and as a winger too. Dean Smith can work with him on several systems apart from the orthodox 4-3-3 or 4-4-1-1.
In terms of the attributes, Fuchs is pretty good when it comes to making forays up the pitch and also recover those runs defensively. His crossing is generally spot on, hence, strikers can always expect a good cross into the box whenever the Austrian has the ball outside the opposition box.
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His physicality and height (187cm) aid him to be a threat in the air as well, meaning he could go forward during a set-piece and give a real headache to the defenders. The 32-year-old may not be the quickest fullback in the world, but he is surely effective and could be a difference-maker for Aston Villa.