The Dane was certainly lacking in Greatness; after just six appearances, his Aston Villa career was over.
It’s not often you can legitimately claim to have been ripped off for a £1.2 million signing. Yet, Aston Villa could make an exception for Nicklas Helenius, as reported by the Ekstrabladet.
Villa’s recruitment at the start of the 2013/14 season left a lot to be desired. Aleksandar Tonev, Antonio Luna, Jores Okore and Libor Kozak ranged from the anonymous to the disastrous though Helenius, managing just six appearances and a single goal, was arguably the worst of a ragtag bunch.
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The fact he is best remembered for losing his shorts in an League Cup clash with Tottenham Hotspur speaks volumes.
In fact, he somewhat epitomises the dramatic fall of one of English football’s great institutions. Out went the established stars, the James Milners, Ashley Youngs and Gareth Barrys, and in came unknown, unproven imports, departing under a cloud after arriving under the radar.
It’s no coincidence that Villa’s league position slipped by season, eventually resulting in relegation.
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Yet, Helenius, who has managed just 18 league goals for various Danish clubs after leaving Villa Park, says an illness, rather than an inability to adapt to the English game, was to blame for his disastrous, and short-lived, spell in the Midlands.
“[The struggles] was not because I was homesick when I was in England,” Helenius told Ekstrabladet of a bacterial infection which put pay to his chances in England. “It was solely my disease.”
Nonetheless, Helenius has done little since being ushered out of Villa Park to suggest that the Midlands giants will be rueing letting him go so soon.
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