Looking for a way out from Aston Villa in January, Leander Dendoncker thought he had found it when Walter Mazzarri told Napoli he wanted the Belgian in his squad.
A quick loan deal was organised with an option to buy at around €10m, but with 21 minutes of football played and him being left out of their Champions League squad, it simply hasn’t worked out.
In fact, it’s turned into a bit of a nightmare for the Aston Villa man, whose situation gets covered by Gazzetta dello Sport on Friday.
They recall that he was an ‘express request’ from Mazzarri, who needed a ‘low midfielder’ also capable of playing centre-back, which is exactly what Dendoncker is.
However, it was ‘immediately evident’ that he would be used only marginally when he was left out of the European list, and his very small amount of minutes are just ‘another proof of this’.
It’s made extremely clear, echoing previous reports, that Napoli will not be paying Aston Villa the money to make the move permanent, and Dendoncker will be returning to Villa Park, giving Unai Emery something to think about this summer.
Both he and Hamed Traorè are labelled as ‘missed promises’, clearly arriving with hope of helping out the Serie A side only to fail in their endeavours.
