Adlene Guedioura moved to Middlesbrough rather than Championship outfit Aston Villa in January – but he’ll be down in the second tier himself next season.
When Aston Villa reflect on a disappointing Championship campaign, finishing in the bottom half despite comfortably outspending every team in the league, it’s unlikely that will look back on their failure to sign Adlene Guedioura as a turning point.
The Sun claimed in January that Villa were keen on Watford’s Algerian midfielder and were willing to bid £3 million for his services.
Eventually, however, Premier League strugglers Middlesbrough got their man instead, with Villa forced to make do with proven Championship talent Connor Hourihane and Henri Lansbury.
And while the former Barnsley and Nottingham Forest captains are yet to find their best form at Villa Park, it appears unlikely that Guedioura was the player manager Steve Bruce needed to secure a place far closer to the Championship play-offs.
On the other hand, however, you could forgive the 31-year-old for perhaps wishing he had donned claret and blue rather than Middlesbrough red in January. After all, he only made five substitute appearances for Boro between January and May, amounting to a grand total of 136 minutes.
He wasn’t even on the winning side on a single occasion.
And if Guedioura chose Middlesbrough over Villa to ensure he remained in the Premier League, the conclusion of the 2016/17 season brought with it an ironic quirk of fate.
Boro appeared to have the solidity and the organisation to make a decent fist of survival when he arrived in January. However, that soon dissipated, the departure of manager Aitor Karanka paving the way for a rather timid stumble into the second tier.
Middlesbrough manager Aitor Karanka was sacked in March
As it stands, Guedioura will be playing against Villa next season. And with the Midlands club looking well placed to challenge for the top six next season, you wonder whether Guedioura’s decision will come back to haunt him.
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