Former Aston Villa Youngster Joins Östersunds FK Project

Jerell Sellars impressed a few years back, but just wasn’t good enough for Aston Villa – now he’s pushing for the Europa League with Swedish outfit Östersunds FK.

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

Former Aston Villa youth prospect Jerell Sellars has joined Swedish Allsvenskan side Östersunds FK, who you may just remember as being the side to come close against Arsenal in the Europa League last season.

Östersunds FK were praised for their style of football, and even had a player – in Saman Ghoddos, who has been linked with a move to England – play at the World Cup this year for Iran.

Then manager Graham Potter has now joined Aston Villa’s Championship rivals Swansea City, after countless rumours that the Swedish club wouldn’t be able to keep a hold of their star manager, leaving Ian Burchnall as a caretaker manager in his stead.

Sellars Impressed at Aston Villa but Couldn’t Push On

Sellars impressed a few seasons back during pre-season and fans thought he may have been able to break into the first team squad, but as is usually the case with Aston Villa, the youngster found himself being loaned out to Wycombe Wanderers in 2016, where he appeared eight times.

After his spell at Wycombe, Aston Villa decided not to renew Sellars contract, and the now 22-year-old joined Cheltenham Town for the 2017-18 season – managing three goals in 35 appearances.

Sellars then found himself leaving Cheltenham at the end of the one-year contract provided, and a few days back joined Östersunds FK.

The former Aston Villa man will be playing fellow Englishmen Andrew Mills, Jamie Hopcutt and Curtis Edwards. Edwards was part of the Middlesbrough academy as a youngster, but none of the aforementioned have played at the level that Sellars has.

In the future we could be seeing Sellars facing the upper-echelons of the footballing world again in the Europa League – but we unfortunately won’t get to see the former Villan on that stage this season, with Östersunds FK missing out on qualification by a meagre two points.

After 14  games in the current Allsvenskan season, Östersunds sit in fifth – six points behind the Europa League qualification spots.