The player could reunite with his former youth team boss at Aston Villa.
The Aston Villa academy director, Mark Harrison, could be about to deliver one of the promises he made to Villans supporters upon his arrival at Bodymoor Heath.
Harrison was prised by Aston Villa from local rivals, West Bromwich Albion, in early September.
And according to The Daily Mail, he could soon be reunited with a player he helped to develop at The Hawthorns, in Louie Barry.
Like Harrison, Barry also left the Baggies last summer, although it was not Aston Villa but Barcelona who profited in that instance.
Yet it is claimed that Villa are now in talks to bring the teenage talent back to his native West Midlands, after he became unsettled in Catalonia.
The Mail reports that Barca want £3 million for Barry amid interest from a number of clubs, but adds it is the Villans who are in pole position to sign him.
If true, it would be the sort of scenario envisaged by Harrison at the time of his appointment, when he told the Villans’ official Youtube channel: “The medium-term [goal] is to make sure we’re competitive so we can recruit players [for] Aston Villa, an academy that is well respected throughout the country.
“So if we approach a player somewhere in the country, we’re competing with the so-called bigger academies, the Chelseas, the Manchester Citys, the Arsenals, the Liverpools and, equally, locally. We’ve got to make sure that locally Aston Villa are the club that everybody wants to come to.”
And it was in fact the example of Barry – a lifelong Aston Villa fan from a family of them – that Harrison gave to illustrate his point.
“A player (Barry) left West Bromwich Albion to go to Barcelona,” added Harrison. “He lives in Sutton Coldfield, he’s a Villa fan, his dad’s a Villa fan, that just can’t happen in the future.”
And it looks like it won’t this time.
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