Dean Smith confirms why Scott Hogan and Callum O’Hare have been sent out on loan by Aston Villa

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Aston Villa have decided to loan out Scott Hogan to Sheffield United and Callum O’Hare to Carlisle United on deadline day.

Aston Villa boss Dean Smith has stated that attacking duo Scott Hogan and Callum O’Hare have gone out on loan ‘to get minutes’ under their belt.

Sheffield United confirmed on their official Twitter account that striker Hogan has joined Villa’s Championship rivals until the end of the season.

As for playmaker O’Hare, League Two side Carlisle United confirmed on their official website that they have snapped up Villa’s youth product on a loan deal.

Smith stated that Villa’s main man up front, Tammy Abraham would need to suffer a ‘drastic’ bad run of form in order for Hogan to have a chance of breaking into the first team.

Added with that, there are other players ahead of him in the pecking order, but with O’Hare it is a matter of building him as a player and developing him so he can try to get to the next level.

“I’ve got a Premier League player playing centre-forward for us,” Smith told AVTV. “I have also got Kodjia, Davis and along with Scott Hogan, I said with all four of them can play for any other team in this league.

“For Scott to get minutes here it was going to take a drastic fall of form from Tammy.

“They [O’Hare and younsters] needed some development by getting minutes. Callum going to a team that is challenging at the top of League Two in Carlisle, who play really good football.”

Villa are trying their best to close the gap on the Championship’s top-six after a mixed bag of results during the first half of the campaign – they are four points behind sixth-placed Derby County.

Smith has been using Abraham in the forward role since his arrival in October, with Kodjia showing his versatility and playing on the left-hand side of attack – Keinan Davis recently returned from injury.

Over the course of the season, Chelsea loanee Abraham has scored 19 goals for Villa and he will be looking to hit the 20 goal mark when they visit Reading at the weekend.