Aston Villa sold Matt Targett and Danny Murphy believes Steven Gerrard may have made a mistake by selling him to Newcastle United.
Gerrard has met the Villa axe following Thursday’s 3-0 defeat away at Fulham.
After less than a year in charge of Villa, Gerrard is on his way out Villa Park and the inquest into his failure has started.
Some have pointed to Gerrard’s tactics and his reluctance to change, his inability to get the best out of Villa’s attacking players and his commitment to Philippe Coutinho.
What about his decisions at left back though?
Aston Villa sold Matt Targett
Gerrard took the Villa job in November of last year and made signing a new left back one of his top priorities in January.
There were links with Rangers ace Brown Barisic but Villa ended up raiding Everton for Lucas Digne instead.
Surplus to requirements under Rafael Benitez, Digne was an exciting addition as a proven Premier League defender.
Digne hasn’t been a huge problem for Villa but he maybe hasn’t been able to impact the game as hoped either.
Digne’s arrival meant Villa were willing to let Matt Targett leave the club.
Targett had been first-choice left back before Digne’s arrival and he completed a late loan move to Newcastle United.
Targett played well in the second half of last season and did enough to earn himself a permanent deal at St James’ Park.
Newcastle paid £12million to turn Targett’s £3million loan move into a permanent move and that has represented decent business.
The 27-year-old has started four Premier League games this season and come on in another four, sharing time at left back with Dan Burn.
Pundit Danny Murphy has now told the Daily Mail that he thinks Gerrard made something of a mistake by letting Targett go.
It’s not that Murphy thinks Targett is a revolutionary left back, but more that the signing of Digne represented a strange transfer approach.
Murphy feels offloading Targett to sign Digne wasn’t the best use of funds and that Gerrard should probably have stuck with the ‘decent’ Targett.
“The biggest issue was recruitment,” said Murphy.” OK, funds weren’t as big as people think, but they were still spent patchily. Lucas Digne was signed when Villa already had a decent left-back, Matt Targett,” he added.
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