As per one of the latest reports by The Birmingham Mail, Aston Villa are interested in luring Leicester City’s out-of-favour striker, Leonardo Ulloa, to the Villa Park this month in a loan deal. Ulloa has received very less game time with the Foxes and needs to move away to resurrect his career.
Aston Villa are one of the sides which are Premier League promotion candidates. Under the tutelage of Steve Bruce, the Villans have been quite decent so far in the Championship. Yesterday, their 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest and Bristol City’s loss 1-0 loss against Norwich City meant they moved up to the 4th spot in the league table with 47 points to their name after 27 games.
The job is still far from done and it is important for them to keep the momentum going and target a top-two finish, which would enable them to get an automatic promotion to the top division. With Jonathan Kodjia out injured, they do need attacking reinforcements and thus, their apparent interest to sign Ulloa makes a lot of sense.
Apart from the Argentine, the Foxes have the four other strikers; Jamie Vardy, Shinji Okazaki, Islam Slimani and Kelechi Iheanacho in their ranks. Ulloa’s stature has considerably diminished this season, as he has been handed merely 4 substitute appearances in the Premier League so far and 2 starts in the League Cup. At this stage of his career, the 31-year-old must be looking to ply his trade regularly.
The strikers Bruce has at his disposal haven’t fired and there have been occasions when they were lacklustre up front. Ulloa has been on the radar of Aston Villa for over a year now and owing to the Financial Fair Play regulations, they might have to look for a loan deal instead of signing him on a permanent basis.
Nonetheless, the former Brighton & Hove Albion forward would be a decent addition, for he has plenty of experience of English football under his belt and is physically quite capable to withstand the Championship. Ulloa is excellent in holding the ball in the final third and is decently clinical as a striker. He is a Premier League winner and his entry into the ranks of Bruce would inject some winning mentality amongst the troops.