Over the summer, fans will remember that Aston Villa made a big push to sign young French centre-half Harold Moukoudi from Ligue 2 side Le Harve.
Having been given a tour of Bodymoor Heath and Villa Park, the youngster opted against a reported £7million switch as he wanted to focus on continuing to grow his stock and he did point himself to how late the deal came around as one of the reasons for him not jumping at the switch.
The failure of the deal to go through, along with our failure to capture Aberdeen’s Scott McKenna, obviously contributed to our defensive problems and lack of numbers and even though there was some speculation that we wanted to return for him in the January transfer window, nothing came of it.
According to the Birmingham Mail the player is now kicking his heels in the stands, as his refusal to sign a new deal at Le Harve has seen the club president instruct the manager to no longer pick him for the team and they quote Vincent Volpe as saying.
“He will not play anymore. It will be dismissed until June. This is what we tried to avoid. I’m far from happy to find myself in this situation.”
Short of not signing a new deal, the player hasn’t put a foot wrong and it seems a massive overreaction on their part. He’s already been sidelined for eleven games, last appearing in late December, and without him on the pitch they have slipped down the league table, so it’s a great example of cutting their nose off to spite their face.
Their club skipper, Alexandre Bonnet, is also quoted as saying.
“It’s a shame, it’s a mistake too I think. When we have a player like that in the ranks, it’s a shame to deprive ourselves of it. We saw it during the first part of the season. He’s an excellent defender but he also scored some very important goals on set pieces. He shows tremendous professionalism, he works a lot, he trains as if he were going to play.”
Whether he regrets not making the move now is open to debate, but I’d imagine he’s a player we will again be linked with as the summer approaches, as from the sounds of things he did continue to develop well in the opening part of the year and we know our defence needs an overhaul come the summer.
