Carlos Sanchez could be exactly what Aston Villa are missing

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Aston Villa have experienced an inconsistent first Championship campaign since last year’s relegation from the Premier League.

Alongside Newcastle United, Aston Villa may well be considered as the largest of the fallen giants in today’s Championship.

Indeed, what with the likes of Leeds United, Nottingham Forest, Blackburn Rovers and Norwich City – plus many others – competing in English football’s second tier, Villa have produced a relatively poor return of results – despite investing in a number of proven Championship performers.

A large majority of these new faces have been in the central midfield department, with Henri Lansbury, Conor Hourihane, Aaron Tshibola, Mile Jedinak and Birkir Bjarnason all joining the club since Villa’s top flight exit.

However, in the days when Villa were still a Premier League club, then boss Paul Lambert signed combative midfielder Carlos Sanchez from Spanish outfit Elche CF – a transfer that, whilst not especially lauded at the time, may well have been an excellent piece of business in retrospect.

Whilst perhaps not receiving large amounts of praise or coverage during his stint in the Villa first team – where Sanchez made 28 appearances in his first season before falling out of favour and playing just 20 times in Villa’s relegation year – Opta statistics from the Colombian international’s time in the Premier League suggest favourable sets of data; particularly when compared to the output of Villa’s current crop of central midfielders.

Sanchez made a tackle for every 25.78 minutes of Premier League football played, made a pass every 1.55 minutes played, touched the ball once every 1.25 minutes played and made an accurate pass for every 1.86 minutes played. When compared to this season’s equivalent data for Jedinak, Lansbury, Hourihane and Bjarnason, Sanchez notably comes out on top. In fact, the only statistic that Sanchez doesn’t top, is the number of minutes per interception (52.24) – where he sits second behind the recently resurgent Jedinak (38.41).

Regardless, Sanchez was allowed to join Italian side Fiorentina on loan at the start of the current campaign – which has seen the Viola lose just seven of their 27 Serie A games this season, with Sanchez contributing 22 appearances.

It remains to be seen whether Villa, despite seemingly replacing Sanchez with statistically inferior performers, have much influence over the future of their loanee at the culmination of his spell in Italy – but perhaps Bruce could do a lot worse than to consider a return for the former Elche anchorman.

Do you think a Carlos Sanchez return would improve the current Aston Villa side? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.