Three Players Who Aston Villa Should Offload In The Summer
This is a tricky one given that we don’t know yet whether Villa will be a Championship side or a Premier League one. Either way, players will always be traded of course and if Villa do indeed go up then more swapping around will be done in order to use the extra TV money to raise the quality of the squad.
If however, Aston Villa stay in this division for another season then their trading will have to be cannier Not only will Steve Bruce need to be wise about who he brings in, but he’ll need to be clever about who he lets go.
This means not just throwing away the obvious dead wood but also selling on players for a reasonable sum of money who may no longer be able to offer Villa what they need in order to reach the Premier League. Here are three such players:
Birkir Bjarnason
Although some have gone on to do well as individuals, Bjarnason is one of a host of Icelandic players the clubs took a chance on because of their team’s good showing at Euro 2016. Whatever happened to scouting?
Anyway, Bjarnason hasn’t really done the business at Villa which is of no real surprise. So at 29 years of age and still worth a couple of million pounds, he is primed to be sold by the club this summer.
Henri Lansbury
The former Nottingham Forest captain was signed just last January but his game playing antics on the pitch don’t really endear him to many people and frankly, his quality is not what Villa need if they are to reach the Premier League.
Lansbury has played just 6 times in the Championship for Villa this season and is under contract until 2021 so Villa will demand some money for him, though it won’t be a hell of a lot.
Glenn Whelan
If Steve Bruce remains totally honest, Whelan hasn’t delivered the sort of quality that was expected of him after dropping down from the Premier League last summer.
At 34, Whelan is not going to improve any further and so Villa will need something different next season and to achieve this, players like Whelan cannot hang around the squad, taking a wage.
It is likely the club will force Steve Bruce’s hand in the summer and sell Whelan, regardless of what the manager thinks, just in the same way they decided not to renew the contract of Alan Hutton.
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