Former Birmingham City player Martin O’Connor has offered his thoughts on Aston Villa’s Conor Hourihane.
Former Birmingham City midfielder Martin O’Connor has expressed his ‘surprise’ at Conor Hourihane’s form for Aston Villa as he admitted that he’s ‘not his greatest fan’.
The 27-year-old has scored in back-to-back games for Villa, most recently during the 1-0 win at Swansea City on Boxing Day, with goalkeeper Orjan Nyland saving a 90th-minute penalty.
Republic of Ireland international Hourihane, who was a Steve Bruce signing, moved to the Midlands club in January 2017 from then-Championship side Barnsley.
Despite Hourihane helping his team to a valuable three points in midweek, Ex-Blues man O’Connor offered his honest opinion on the player.
“I have been surprised by him because I am not the greatest fan of Hourihane,” O’Connor told BBC Radio WM.
“But he has been getting on the scoresheet, but then again they go to Swansea and get a result. Not a great performance but this is what you need in the Championship at this stage of the season.”
Over the course of the campaign, Hourihane has scored four goals from the middle of the park and provided six assists to his teammates.
Since making that switch from Yorkshire to Villa Park, Hourihane has scored 16 goals and supplied 11 assists in 87 league matches – he was part of the team that lost the play-off final to Fulham in May.
The free-kick specialist will be hoping to get on the scoresheet once again on Saturday when Villa take on Alex Neil’s Preston North End.
Villa are three points outside of the play-off places and they could close the gap on their promotion rivals with three points against the 17th-placed club.
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