Aston Villa have confirmed that goalkeeper Viljami Sinisalo has completed a season-long loan move to Exeter City.
The 21-year-old spent time on loan at Burton Albion in the first half of last season before returning to Villa in January, and was named on the bench for 15 Premier League games as Unai Emery went with two shot-stoppers in reserve on a regular basis.
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However, at this stage of his career, the Finnish youngster needs to play consistently to continue to develop and improve his game, and that opportunity has now presented itself.
As confirmed by the club’s statement, Sinisalo has joined Exeter on a season-long loan deal, returning to League One where he’ll hope to prove himself and step up a level off the back of that.
With Emiliano Martinez set in stone as our starter and with Robin Olsen as his back-up, chances to feature would have been severely limited for Sinisalo despite the fact that we’ll look to compete on multiple fronts this year.
That said, Emery may well feel as though he needs to bring in a safe pair of hands as our third-choice goalkeeper in the upcoming campaign to fill the void that he leaves behind now, with doubts also persisting over Olsen’s suitability and reliability as a No.2.
Filip Marschall featured in our 1-1 draw at Walsall last weekend and could step up into that role if the Villa boss believes he’s ready, but time will tell if there is an experienced option on the market that could come in and take up that role instead.
Villa are expected to be busy in the transfer window to continue to strengthen Emery’s squad, but they’ve now travelled out to the USA for our pre-season tour as we step up our preparations for the new campaign, with Martinez, Olsen and Marschall forming the goalkeeper department.
