Stoke City manager, Michael O’Neill, has made it clear that Aston Villa striker, Scott Hogan, is free to leave the club by stating that it’s ‘best to move on’, as quoted by The Stoke Sentinel
Hogan is on a season-long loan at the Championship side, but once again, the Villa man has found game time and form pretty tough.
As a result, his current manager, O’Neill, has stated to Hogan ‘it’s best to move on’, as he clearly isn’t in the Northern Irishman’s plans.
During his time at the Staffordshire club, Hogan has played 16 games in all competitions, scoring two goals and supplying one assist [transfermarkt].
Since O’Neill replaced Nathan Jones in the Stoke City dugout, Hogan has just played over an hour of football in the league and is yet to start a game [transfermarkt].
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This is what O’Neill had to say about the Villa man and his future at the relegation-threatened club:
“We had situations with players – and two, in particular, Mark Duffy and Scott Hogan, who are here on loan,” O’Neill told the Stoke Sentinal. “They haven’t played much under me.
“Scott’s had a little bit. Mark hasn’t been involved at all. For their own interests, it’s best to move on and I think they know that.”
It is quite clear that Hogan needs to make sure that his next move, whether it be in the Championship or any other league, needs to be one that provides him with regular game time.
From confidence, sharpness and lack form, a lot has gone wrong for the Englishmen, who needs that goalscoring feeling to be injected into his veins once again.
It says a lot about what Villa think of Hogan because during the period when Dean Smith had no strikers at his disposal, he opted to play Anwar El Ghazi as a false number nine even though he could have recalled Hogan.
Nonetheless, the winter transfer window will slam shut on Friday and Hogan doesn’t have much time to make a move before that deadline day clock goes down to zero.