Should Celtic reignite interest in Aston Villa’s Henri Lansbury?

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Lansbury’s first Championship appearance of the season came on Saturday, but it did not go to plan for the Villa midfielder.

Henri Lansbury’s time at Aston Villa is hanging by a thread and Saturday’s eight-minute cameo role against Birmingham City in the second city derby did not help. A January move could be on the horizon.

The 28-year-old made his first Championship appearance of the season by coming onto the field of play against Garry Monk’s Blues in the 69th minute. Just eight minutes later, he was replaced.

The former Arsenal youth player felt a tweak in his hamstring after being fouled and after spending so long on the sidelines, his reintroduction to first-team league football lasted eight minutes.

With the January window approaching, Lansbury will have done himself no favours in proving to manager Dean Smith that he deserves a run in the team and the chance to show he is worthy of his £2.75million transfer fee (BBC Sport).

A January departure could be in the offing then, especially with the likes of John McGinn, Birkir Bjarnason, Glenn Whelan and Conor Hourihane ahead of him in the pecking order. It should convince Celtic and Brendan Rodgers to have a look.

The Daily Record reported back in January 2017 that Rodgers wanted to sign Lansbury for the Scottish champions. Instead, Lansbury chose to leave Nottingham Forest and join Villa.

Rodgers has been a keen admirer of Lansbury, with BBC Sport quoting the Celtic boss in 2010 as saying that he wanted to land the then-Arsenal midfielder on loan for Swansea.

Lansbury is likely to be available and though Celtic have profited from the rise of Ryan Christie, the injuries to Scott Brown, Olivier Ntcham and Kouassi Eboue – as well as the loss of Stuart Armstrong – has left them light in midfield.

Landing a player who can score from anywhere on the pitch, play in the number 10 role, box-to-box or sit in front of the back four in Lansbury would catapult Celtic’s triple treble push in the second half of the season.