Aston Villa’s Callum Robinson will be all but set to leave Birmingham for the sunny shores of Preston having agreed a contract with Preston North End.
According to the Lancashire Evening Post, Robinson will be moving to the club where he has spent the vast majority of his senior career at. This move is now official with Preston confirming it themselves.
Callum Robinson has enjoyed three separate loan spells at the Lancashire club and always seemed more of a ‘fixture’ at Preston than at a Villa team in which he barely featured.
Robinson won’t be leaving for nothing, as due to his age - compensation will be claimed by Aston Villa and a fee will be agreed with PNE.
Despite the fact that Villa are letting another youth prospect go, there was no clear sign that Robinson was ever going to cut it in B6. He didn’t get many games during a recent loan spell at Bristol City and the brutal truth might just be that the lad isn’t good enough.
I mean, if you’re Villa’s manager, you’ve got Carles Gil, Jack Grealish, Scott Sinclair, Adama Traore, Rudy Gestede, Jordan Ayew, Andre Green, Rushian Hepburn-Murphy, Harry McKirdy and even Gabby Agbonlahor as choices, without bringing new players on-board. That’s a big ask for Robinson to out-perform even half of those players.
And hey, if Villa did offer a contract, that list of players would have been known to Robinson and why would he risk scuppering his career when he can play senior football elsewhere?
This shouldn’t be a reflection on Callum’s ability, as we know that the ability gap in football is decreasing and genuine talents do fall through the net, but it’s going to be hard to make the grade at a Villa team who need to bounce back from catastrophe.
Best of luck, Callum!
*Callum Robinson has officially departed AVFC - this article was amended to reflect the move being rubber-stamped.