OPINION
Aston Villa need to find a new club for Ross McCormack this summer after it was reported his wages will rise if the club earn promotion.
McCormack is one of the fringe players at Villa Park whose wages will increase, according to The Mirror, if Aston Villa win their Championship play-off final against Derby County and earn promotion to the Premier League.
However, the 32-year-old’s wage could prove to be the biggest concern for Dean Smith’s side, with the attacker’s wages thought to be set to increase to £70,000-a-week should Villa go up.
That would be an enormous figure for McCormack to be earning considering that he is out of favour at Villa Park, and has spent part of the season out on loan with both Central Coat Mariners in Australia, and Motherwell in Scotland.
McCormack joined Aston Villa from Fulham for £12million in the summer of 2016, but he has featured just 24 times for the club since his arrival and scored just three goals.
The 32-year-old was even involved in a controversial incident with former manager Steve Bruce in 2017, when the then Villa boss turned up to McCormack’s house to express his anger, after the striker claimed he could not get to training because of his gate, according to The Mirror.
That has somewhat labelled McCormack with having a bad attitude and he has still not been able to force his way into Smith’s plans since he arrived at the club from Brentford.
McCormack is now at the age of 32 and has not had a season where he has been in any real kind of form since he scored 21 Championship goals for Fulham in the 2015/16 season.
That will make it difficult for Aston Villa to find a potential suitor, especially considering McCormack will likely be reluctant to take a drastic wage cut to move to another side.
However, with Villa needing all of their available resources to concentrate on strengthening their squad should they earn promotion, they can not really afford to have an unwanted player taking up a large chunk of their wage budget.
Whatever happens with Villa in the Championship play-off final the situation of McCormack’s future at the club needs to be addressed in the summer, and they should accept any offer that comes their way for the attacker as a result.