ELPHICK JOINS HULL
Tommy Elphick, rarely favoured by Steve Bruce during his tenure to date at Villa Park has joined Hull on a season long loan deal.
Elphick will be hoping that the move brings him some game time after a similar deal with Reading provided him just 4 first team opportunities in the final part of last term.
Whilst Elphick has hardly set the world alight since his move from Bournemouth, it is a surprise quite how far down the pecking order he’s been at Villa. He might feel a little aggrieved having seen the likes of Chris Samba on the payroll and having appeared in Bruce’s centre half pairing for the season opener (ironically against Hull, against whom he scored).
The final puzzle is that Villa aren’t over-flowing with recognised cover at centre back. The un-easy partnership of Mile Jedinak, a midfielder by trade and James Chester, appears ill-advised at best.
One would hope that Bruce has something else up his sleeve.
In terms of 30 year old Elphick, with a contract only until next summer, it looks increasingly unlikely we’ll see him in a Villa shirt again.
Good luck to Tommy, we should have kept him and we may regret letting him go.
But I have to say that I am over the moon with the signing of TA best form of defence and all that so hopefully we will score a lot more goals now which should help out our defence. We now have the players ElGhazi, Bolasie, Grealish, Mc Ginn.
Abraham’s and Kodjia this will strike fear into our opponents.