Stan Collymore explains how Aston Villa can salvage ‘liability’ Wesley Moraes

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Wesley has scored just four Premier League goals since joining Dean Smith’s Aston Villa for £22m from Club Brugge.

Stan Collymore has slammed Aston Villa striker Wesley Moraes in his column for the Mirror (10 December, page 57), calling the Brazil international a ‘liability’ and pointing out that he has much to learn from Emile Heskey and John Carew.

Like two of Villa’s most influential number nines from yesteryear, Wesley is a real unit of a centre-forward who, at his best, can bully centre-halves and offer a real presence inside the penalty area.

But we simply haven’t seen enough of those performances from a man who moved to the Premier League from Club Brugge in a £22 million summer deal. Wesley has just four goals in 12 games so far and the abiding memory of his last few appearances is of the 23-year-old sprawled on the turf, flailing his arms in frustration.

And Collymore, himself a former Villa striker, feels that the 6ft 3ins front man needs to go back to basics and study the likes of Heskey and Carew, who shone in claret and blue with their physical strength and reliable hold-up play giving defenders all over England plenty of headaches.

“If Villa are going to stay up then (Dean) Smith and (John) Terry must pull Wesley to one side and say; ‘If we are going to believe in you, then you need to do the basics well, which is playing with your back to goal’,” said the outspoken pundit.

“But I don’t see any evidence of coaching in terms of that.

“I’ve said from day one that I’d go in for free, and I’m sure Emile Heskey or John Carew would as well, and show Wesley how to play that way. At the minute, he is a liability.

“If they are not going to do that, then they need to take him out of the team and buy a striker in January.”

Aston Villa have been praised for their performances since returning to the top flight with the likes of Jack Grealish and John McGinn shining in the Premier League.

The fact is though that, after Sunday’s 4-1 home defeat to Leicester, they are above the relegation zone on goal difference alone. A slack defence, coupled with a misfiring striker, is not a combination that often results in success.