The Czech striker has only made two substitute appearances this season and has not featured for the first-team since Bruce’s appointment in October.
Aston Villa manager Steve Bruce has revealed to the Birmingham Mail that little-used striker Libor Kozak will likely leave the club in the January transfer window.
Kozak, 27, joined Villa from Lazio in September 2013 for €6.5 million (£5.4 million) but has only played 22 times for the club due to suffering a career-threatening leg break midway through his first season in England.
After spending 18 months out of first-team action, the Czech Republic international finally returned to the senior fold ahead of last term, but he has since made just seven competitive appearances and failed to add to the four goals he scored for the claret and blues back in 2013.
He has only featured twice off the bench so far this season under former boss Roberto Di Matteo, and with Jonathan Kodjia, Jordan Ayew, Ross McCormack, Rudy Gestede, Gabby Agbonlahor and the emerging Rushian Hepburn-Murphy all ahead of him in the pecking order, Bruce admits that the towering front man would be better off leaving Villa Park next month to get his career back on track.
“To be fair to the boy, he’s just got himself back training and fit,” Bruce told the Birmingham Mail ahead of Saturday’s match at Leeds United. “It’s been a disaster and maybe a change of scenery for him is probably inevitable.
“He needs to go and play football, so if we could get a home for him to go and play football, that would probably be good.”
A report by the Daily Mirror this week also claimed that McCormack is facing a fight to save his Villa career just four months after securing a £12 million move from Fulham, but Bruce has since dismissed suggestions of an imminent departure and given his backing to the Scottish forward.
The former Hull City boss expects some transfer activity at Villa Park in January, with a new defensive midfielder rumoured to be on his wishlist, but he has yet to make any concrete plans after only working with the current squad for seven weeks since replacing Di Matteo at the helm in October.
“I haven’t really turned my attention to the transfer window just yet,” Bruce added at his pre-match press conference on Friday morning. “We’ve had one or two conversations but all my energy’s been put into the team and the squad of players we’ve got now.
“Like I said to everybody two or three weeks ago, I’ve said to the players that it’s up to them now. Whatever’s gone on in the past is in the past – they’ve got to try to impress me now and, to be fair to them, they haven’t put a foot wrong yet.
“If there’s somebody in January who can improve us, then we’ll try and act.”
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