Aston Villa winger Andre Green was on loan at League One outfit Portsmouth during the first half of the season.
Portsmouth manager Kenny Jackett has confirmed that Dean Smith called him on Wednesday regarding the return of Aston Villa loanee Andre Green.
Villa announced on their official Twitter account on Thursday that winger Green is set to cut short his season-long loan spell at Fratton Park.
Jackett admitted that the phone call from Smith was ‘out of the blue’ as he explained why the Championship club have recalled their player.
“I got the call yesterday from Dean Smith, the Aston Villa manager, saying he was likely to recall Andre during the course of the day,” said Jackett, as quoted by The News “Having enough home-grown talent and quota in their group is something they’ve been looking at.
“It was out of the blue, definitely, and not something we engineered but we obviously know what the loan market is and how it is.”
During his time with the League One club, 20-year-old Green played 12 games in all competitions for the south coast club, scoring five goals and supplying one assist.
Upon his initial arrival to Portsmouth, Villa’s academy product missed a number of games as he battled injury but he returned in recent weeks to the great delight of supporters.
At the start of the month, the powerful attacker came off the substitutes bench to score an injury-time winner which knocked Norwich City out of the FA Cup.
Now, the highly-rated attacker will be battling with the likes of Yannick Bolasie, Albert Adomah, Anwar El Ghazi and Jonathan Kodjia for those wide spots in Smith’s starting XI.
Villa, who have won once during their past eight matches in all competitions, host in-form Hull City on home soil at the weekend.
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