Aston Villa have confirmed that Ben Chrisene has joined Kilmarnock on a season-long loan deal.
The 18-year-old joined the club in 2020 and after playing a key role at youth level, he has impressed enough to train regularly with Steven Gerrard’s first-team squad since last season.
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However, with opportunities and playing time limited, Villa have decided to send him out on loan for the season, as per the club’s official statement, with Chrisene now joining Kilmarnock for the rest of the campaign.
As we’ve done with a number of our top prospects this summer, Chrisene will now benefit from a more prominent role elsewhere as he’ll hope to play regularly and gain valuable experience at this stage of his career to improve and develop his all-round game.
With Lucas Digne, loan signing Ludwig Augustinsson and Ashley Young all available to Gerrard to play at left-back, it simply didn’t make sense to keep Chrisene around and starve him of playing time at a high level with the senior side, and so he’ll now relish the chance to impress out on loan.
With Augustinsson’s spell only temporary until the end of this season, combined with Young turning 38 next summer, there will be a window for Chrisene moving forward to move up the pecking order and put Digne under pressure.
However, that time isn’t now and so Gerrard and Villa will hope to see him take his game forward whilst with Kilmarnock, and show that he can take the next step in his career and ultimately become a valued member of the Villa first-team squad from next season onwards.
