Can Villa Justify Keeping Scott Hogan?

With the transfer window now open, the rumour mill is spinning at an alarming rate – but Villa are being linked with managers rather than players this early into the window. With Financial Fair Play looming over Villa Park, a number of players have left already but there will surely be many more facing the exit this summer. With that in mind, can Villa justify keeping players like Scott Hogan, who simply haven’t given the club a return on the money paid for his services?

Scott Hogan’s Steady Decline

Hogan joined Aston Villa on the final day of the January 2017 transfer window for an estimated £12,000,000 from Sky Bet Championship rivals Brentford – as Villa looked to acquire players who were proven goalscorers in the league, shown by the signing of Jonathan Kodjia just a few months earlier for a then record fee in the league.

Scott Hogan was indeed a proven goalscorer in the league, and with Brentford playing to his strengths he mustered up 21 goals in 33 games, a decent return for a player who was signed from Rochdale in 2014.

In his first season at Villa Park, many of Hogan’s appearances came alongside Jonathan Kodjia or as a sub, limiting him to 14 games from the January transfer window to the end of the season – where the forward scored one goal. Hogan looked timid, as if the prospect of playing for a big club like Aston Villa was too much for the Salford born striker.

In the 2017-18 season, Scott Hogan had a torrid time with a lack of form and injury hampering his game time. Hogan didn’t score in a league game until January of 2018 – Villa’s huge 5-0 win against play-off hopefuls Bristol City.

Over Hogan’s two seasons in the Villa squad, he’s appeared 37 times and scored 6 goals, a far cry from the form he showed as a Brentford player. To put that into perspective, youngster Keinan Davis – who has had his first full season as a member of the first team squad – managed to find the net three times this season, and he was signed as a youth player.

According to , Scott Hogan’s value sits at around £6,300,000 – just over half of what Aston Villa paid for him. With clubs aware of Vila’s plight against Financial Fair Play, it’s likely that clubs will know that the club need to sell and will offer less than that for him.

The question that remains is would Villa be better keeping a hold of the former Brentford man, or be better selling him whilst he’s still worth something so that the club can chip away at their budgetary restraints?

Time will tell whether Hogan is deemed surplus to requirements at Villa Park, but with such a poor showing in front of goal for the most part of two seasons, it might be time for Scott to go.

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Words by Regan Foy (@FindFoy) // Follow us on Twitter (@claretandview)