The young French striker Dimitri Sea was backed to become part of the Aston Villa attack.
But 10 months after those comments were made by Bertrand Rebours, the man who spotted him as a 10-year-old, via The Birmingham Mail, Sea has signed for Barrow on a free.
The League Two newcomers confirmed the 19-year-old’s arrival on Monday, with their manager David Dunn, a former Birmingham City player, claiming to have consulted Aston Villa before sanctioning the move.
“He’s looked really sharp in training for the last couple of weeks, so we’re pleased to get the deal done,” Dunn told the official Barrow website.
“We have obviously spoken to the people at Villa about him and they have told us just how big a prospect he was there at one stage so we’re really looking forward to working with him.”
Sea was said to have caught the eye of several top French clubs before Aston Villa signed him in 2017.
But Rebours claimed that those in the player’s homeland ‘didn’t understand’ that Sea is not a ‘training ground player’ but a ‘match killer’.
His former club Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt also played a role in developing Allan Saint-Maximin, Marcus Thuram, Jean-Kevin Augustin and Hatem Ben Arfa.
Sea, who scored goals for Aston Villa’s Under-18 and U23 sides, joins the on-loan Birmingham striker Jayden Reid at Barrow.
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