Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has confirmed that the plan for Kosta Nedeljkovic is to leave on loan this month.
The 19-year-old joined us from Red Star Belgrade last January, but spent the remainder of the last campaign back on loan with the Serbian giants.
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Having returned to Villa over the summer and despite impressing in pre-season, the talented youngster has been limited to just nine appearances so far this season across all competitions, and that in turn has raised question marks over his short-term future at the club.
While Nedeljkovic would have benefited significantly from training with the Villa first team over the past six months and working closely with Emery and his coaching staff to improve and develop his game while adapting to the Villa boss’s ideas, the lack of playing time is a problem at his age.
In turn, Emery has revealed that the plan is to send the Serbian international out on loan this month, and hopefully that regular, consistent playing time will be a crucial next phase his his career.
“He’ll need to leave here to play, get confidence, get minutes in another team,” he told the media as his pre-West Ham press conference, as per Jacob Tanswell. “This is the plan with Kosta & the plan changed when we decided to replace him with Andres.”
Nedeljkovic’s situation at Villa became more complicated this month after the signing of Andres Garcia, and with that additional competition for places, he’ll likely fall further down the pecking order with Matty Cash already ahead of him.
With that in mind, the most sensible decision for him in the short term is to go out on loan, but it’s certainly hoped that this isn’t the start of a different path where he ends up leaving permanently.
The Serbian defender has shown plenty of promise and potential and has made a positive impression when involved, and so hopefully he’ll return from a likely loan spell elsewhere a better player, and better prepared to stake a serious claim to become a more prominent figure in Emery’s squad and push ahead of both Cash and Garcia in the long run.