Aston Villa podcaster Dan Morgan has criticised the Birmingham club for their sale of Mbwana Samatta.
This comes after Morgan recently hosted the latest episode of The Villa Filler Podcast from Villa-themed YouTube channel Heart of The Holte.
On the subject of Samatta, who recently joined Turkish side Fenerbahce on a season-long loan deal with a reported four-year permanent deal for the striker to sign next summer, this is what Morgan had to say on the move.
He said: “Very hard done by I feel for [Samatta]. Shocking initial statement from the club, considering this man has scored in a League Cup final.
“[He] really struggled after the lockdown. This isn’t me saying look, I think it was a stupid decision to let him go, but he did really struggle with football on its return.
“[I] don’t think Villa really played to his strengths again, typical Villa signing a striker and not playing to their strengths.”
Villa signed Samatta in the previous January transfer window from Belgian side KRC Genk for £9.45 million. During his time at the club, the 27-year-old only scored two goals in 16 appearances for Villa across all competitions.
When the 2019/20 Premier League restarted back in June, Samatta failed to provide a goal or an assist in any of Villa’s final 10 league matches (per Transfermarkt).
However, as Morgan mentioned in the podcast, Samatta did score Villa’s consolation goal in their 2-1 defeat to Manchester City in the previous Carabao Cup final.
In their announcement of Samatta’s exit on the club’s official website, the club said they would ‘like to wish Ally all the best’ for his move away from Villa Park.
Do you think Villa should have given Samatta a full season?
Yes
No
TIF Thoughts…
It appears that while Morgan feels that Villa haven’t made a wrong decision in allowing Samatta to leave, he seems to believe that the club could have helped him more during his time there and maybe given him a better send-off in their announcement.
In our view, while it appears that the striker did struggle towards the end of last season, it probably would have been fair to give him a full season at Villa to allow him to prove himself.