Aston Villa’s Conor Hourihane clearly won’t be signing for Leeds United.
Team Talk reported on Monday that Conor Hourihane was one of the players Aston Villa could offer Leeds United in a player-plus-cash deal for Kalvin Phillips.
But if recent comments by Dean Smith are anything to go by, the Republic of Ireland midfielder is going nowhere.
The fact that Hourihane only signed a contract extension with Aston Villa at the weekend was already a good indicator that he wouldn’t be offered to Leeds.
But going by what Smith has just said about him, there’s no chance that he’ll be sacrificed.
The 28-year-old set up 11 goals and scored eight for the newly-promoted Premier League side, including one in the playoff semi-final against West Bromwich Albion.
Here’s what Smith said to Villa’s YouTube channel on Monday: “He deserves it [the new deal]. He was top assist maker for us last season and scored some really valuable goals for us. He fully deserves that contract and really looking forward to continuing that relationship with him.”
It’s fair to suggest that the Villans boss probably wouldn’t say that he’s ‘looking forward to continuing’ the relationship with the former Barnsley star if he thought there was even a slim chance of him being offered to Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds side shortly.
Hourihane, a £3 million signing in 2017 [The Irish Examiner], was one of three Aston Villa stars who Team Talk suggested could be offered to the Whites but, based on his manager’s comments, it just won’t happen.
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