Charles N’Zogbia has been handed the chance to resurrect his Aston Villa career only days after the Midlands club were working on a deal to settle the remainder of his contract.
Frozen out under the former manager Tim Sherwood this season, N’Zogbia came off the substitutes’ bench against Manchester City on Sunday to make his first appearance since the FA Cup final and will now be given the opportunity to force his way back into the team by Remi Garde.
It is a strange turn of events for N’Zogbia, who would have been all but resigned to the fact that he would never play for Villa again. The board had certainly come to that conclusion and over several weeks has been trying to reach an agreement with N’Zogbia and his representatives over the final eight months of the five-year deal that was signed in 2011 and costs Villa about £65,000 a week.
Bought for £9.5m from Wigan Athletic, N’Zogbia has been a huge disappointment at Villa Park, failing to impress under a succession of managers. The 29-year-old has started only 54 Premier League games for Villa and scored only five goals in all competitions.
Although Sherwood showed some faith in N’Zogbia towards the end of last season, with the Frenchman starting in six of Villa’s final seven matches, including the FA Cup semi-final win over Liverpool and the FA Cup final defeat at the hands of Arsenal, the former Newcastle winger had been totally out of the picture since.
Garde took over from Sherwood last Monday and mindful of the fact that N’Zogbia had not played for Villa for five months, admitted that he spoke to senior officials at the club to establish whether there was an issue with his countryman prior to naming him in the squad for the City game. “I think Charles is an interesting player,” Garde said. “I just asked at the club if there was a problem with him – there wasn’t. So he was quite OK in the training session and I thought he could be useful for the team, that’s it.”
As well as recalling N’Zogbia, Garde restored the four players recruited from Ligue 1 this summer – Jordan Amavi, Jordan Ayew, Jordan Veretout and Idrissa Gana – to the starting XI. “But they are not back because they are French or I knew them,” Garde said. “In a fortnight it can be a different team. They did well but the team did well. I think the spirit they are starting to show all together is better than I saw previously.”
While Villa remain bottom of the table and five points adrift of Newcastle United in 17th place, the goalless draw against City ended a run of seven successive league defeats and Garde saw some promising signs.
Asked whether the result against the league leaders will have changed the perception outside the club that Villa are doomed, Garde replied: “Hopefully yes, but I am not going to fight [opinions] outside the club. It would be useless. My job is concentrate on where the strengths within the club are and to focus on that and try to do it better for the team.”
