Ritchie de Laet was snapped up by the English League Championship club Aston Villa back on August of 2016 and so far, the Belgium defender has made 3 league appearances for the club and it seems highly unlikely that Ritchie de Laet will be able to show up in any further competitive matches for Aston Villa in the near future due to a knee injury that he sustained.

On September 14 of 2016, Aston Villa locked horns with Brentford in a match that concluded with a 1-1 draw and it was in this game that Ritchie de Laet picked up his injury which is expected to be leaving him out of the playing grounds for the rest of the season.

According to the manager of Aston Villa, Steve Bruce stated that Ritchie de Laet should be available for the pre-season of their upcoming campaign and this means that for the remainder of the current season, Ritchie de Laet will probably not be making another appearance which is extremely disappointing for a player that has only been featured in 3 league matches so far.

It’s now believed that Aston Villa are searching around for potential players that can replace Ritchie de Laet during this period of time where he is injured and unable to get into the pitch.

One of the players that has entered the radar of Aston Villa is James Bree of Barnsley.Bree is a 19 year old who despite being so young, he is already rated as a top performer and Steve Bruce along with his scouting team are preparing an offer in the region of €4 million.

Micah Richards is another defensive player of Aston Villa that has recently sustained an injury which has kept him out of action for a significantly long period of time but Richards is expected to be back in action in February of 2017 but Ritchie de Laet on the other hand is not scheduled to return anytime soon.