Aston Villa have confirmed that midfielder Morgan Sanson has left the club to join OGC Nice on a season-long loan deal.
After joining us from Marseille in January 2021, the 28-year-old went on to feature for us on just 23 occasions, with injuries and competition for places severely limiting his involvement.
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As per the club’s statement, Sanson will spend the new campaign back in France with Nice, and ultimately it’s now difficult to see any possibility of the Frenchman having a future at the club.
With his current Villa contract set to expire in June 2025, it’s become clear now that he doesn’t feature in Unai Emery’s plans moving forward despite featuring in pre-season and making the trip to the USA, and so the ideal outcome would be to sell him in a permanent deal next summer.
Sanson will hope to impress and showcase his quality while with Nice this season, and that should in turn help him secure a permanent transfer where he’ll play a more prominent role elsewhere. As per the Ligue 1 side’s statement, there is an option to buy included in the agreement, and so time will tell if they’re keen to sign him outright next summer.
From a Villa perspective, we’ll hopefully collect a relatively decent fee rather than run the risk of losing him for nothing the following year, and so time will tell if the pieces fall into place for that to happen.
In the more immediate future, Emery may feel as though we need to fill that void to ensure we have enough competition and depth in midfield to compete on multiple fronts this season, as it had been felt that Sanson could have had a part to play given our hectic schedule.
Further exits are now expected at Villa in the coming weeks though as we trim the squad, and that in turn could help us position ourselves to bring in more reinforcements that significantly improve the group if appealing deals present themselves.