BY ASHLEY PREECE
Steven Gerrard has sat down with Morgan Sanson, Frederic Guilbert and Marvelous Nakamba at Bodymoor Heath given the trio’s frustrations at their lack of opportunities at Aston Villa this season.
All three featured under Gerrard during pre-season but failed to impress.
Guilbert, 27, was quickly told to train with the club’s under-21s while, for Sanson and Nakamba, the arrival of Boubacar Kamara has seen them nudged down the pecking order.
Gerrard gave the trio the green light to secure moves away on deadline day but transfers failed to materialise, with French right-back Guilbert speaking out at the disappointment having failed to move out on loan.
“These last few weeks have been very hard psychologically,” Guilbert said on social media, “a lot of doubts, a lot of disappointments. Apparently that’s the job!”
On keeping those on the fringes motivated given the closure of the summer transfer window, Gerrard said: “First and foremost in football you have to motivate yourself.
“But in terms of the collective I try to motivate the players for every single game.
“But you’ve got to be professional, that’s what you’re paid to be.
“Nothing can change as of now, the window’s shut so there should be a hunger and a will to want to perform and do the best they can.
“They are contracted here to Aston Villa and I’ll certainly get a feel of all those players of where they are at with their thinking, with what they tell me and the feedback I get and we’ll go from there.”
Gerrard added: “There are obviously a few players who I assume would have liked, or had the opportunity to go elsewhere, like Morgan Sanson, or Nakamba for example.
“It is important I have a chat with all these players face-to-face.
“But they are very much human beings with feelings.
“You have to understand everyone’s situation.
“That is the issue the window brings for a lot of managers and a lot of clubs, when it is five or six games into a season.
“This is the reason I think collectively managers would like it to finish before the first game of the season because it can affect how people feel at different times.”
Sanson, Nakamba and Guilbert could, though, still secure moves away in the coming days and weeks given the respective transfer window deadlines in Belgium (September 6), Turkey (September 8), Czech Republic (September 8), Portugal (September 22) and Greece (September 22).
One player who also failed to move on during the UK deadline was Douglas Luiz.
The Brazilian was the subject of three £20million-plus bids from Arsenal on deadline day but Villa stood firm with a new contract now in the offing for the midfielder. – BirminghamLive