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Aston Villa: Mat Kendrick discusses Conor Hourihane’s AVFC role

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Image for Aston Villa: Mat Kendrick discusses Conor Hourihane’s AVFC role

Aston Villa journalist Mat Kendrick has been sharing his thoughts on Villa midfielder Conor Hourihane and his role at the club. 

This comes after Kendrick recently made an appearance on the Birmingham Mail’s Claret & Blue Podcast where he spoke about a number of topics concerning Dean Smith’s side.

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On the subject of Villa’s best starting XI, Kendrick had this to say on Hourihane and his role in the team.

He said: “Whenever you write him off and push him down, he comes back up again. I’ve been a harsh critic of him in the past, of him not being quite as consistent, but he played such an important part, you know, I think he got most of the assists in the back-end of the season, during the [restart].

“I think he gets the edge over [Henri] Lansbury, [Marvelous] Nakamba, so he gets the edge over those because you’ve got [Douglas] Luiz who can be your protection blanket, you’ve got [John] McGinn who can be your legs. Conor Hourihane has to be your creative influence in the centre of the park.”

Villa signed Hourihane from Championship side Barnsley back in the 2017 January transfer window for a fee of £3.15 million. Since then, the 29-year-old has made a total of 146 appearances for the Villans, in which he has scored 28 goals and provided 22 assists.

TIF Thoughts…

As Kendrick alluded to in the podcast, Hourihane managed to provide three assists throughout the 10 league games Villa played once their 2019/20 season restarted in June (per Transfermarkt).

Would you start Conor Hourihane against Sheffield United?

Yes

Yes

No

No

It’s nice to hear the praise that Kendrick has for Hourihane and that he sees him as an important part of Villa’s team. Moving forward, it will be interesting to see whether or not Hourihane plays a part in Villa’s upcoming Premier League clash against Sheffield United on Monday, having yet to make his bow in the 2020/21 campaign.

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