OPINION
Aston Villa can nail promotion if they launch a move to re-sign Scott Sinclair in the next week.
Such a move would surely have failed earlier in the window, but Brendan Rodgers made the shock claim on Wednesday night that he expects some of his wingers to quit in the coming month.
Rodgers has admitted the club are close to signing Maryan Shved this month but appeared less than enthused about the prospect in the aftermath of the Hoops’ demolition of St Mirren.
“I can’t say I know a great deal about him but what I have seen he is a talent and something that will probably benefit the club in the future,” Rodgers said, as quoted by Sky Sports on their live transfer blog (Thursday, 8.09am).
“We’ve got about a million wingers and don’t need another one but he’s a talent and in the summer we’ll probably lose wingers and he’ll look to come in.”
Celtic appear well stocked in the wide forwards department, with James Forrest, Scott Sinclair, on-loan Oliver Burke, Ryan Christie, Jonny Hayes and Lewis Morgan among those fighting for first-team slots.
Sinclair and Forrest are the current first choices, and the ex-Villa man continued his fine form with a penalty in the triumph against St Mirren.
It was his 12th goal of the season from 34 matches and his 55th from 140 Celtic matches, a record of which the 2016-17 Scottish player of the year can be proud.
Villa have just lost Yannick Bolasie after he quit midway through his season-long loan and would benefit hugely from a proven attacker of Sinclair’s quality.
The 29-year-old’s record at Villa was actually pretty impressive – he scored nine goals in 45 matches when they were in the Premier League – and he would rip it up against Championship defences.
Fit and firing, he can immediately hit the ground running and provide some further cutting edge to the attack of the promotion hopefuls, who are seven points off the play-offs.
He has been part of a promotion-winning side before, at Swansea City when Rodgers was manager, and the door is ajar for a Villa swoop following Rodgers’ perplexing claim.