Premier League side Aston Villa are set to loan left-back Lino Sousa to League One outfit Bristol Rovers, as reported by Bristol Live.
The Gas, managed by former Rotherham boss Matt Taylor, are looking to strengthen the left side of their defence, despite making a strong start to the season with a 1-0 win against Northampton Town this weekend.
That’s led them to pursue Sousa, who only joined Aston Villa from Arsenal in January. He spent the second period of last season on loan in the Championship with Plymouth Argyle, starting three times, and in order to find more regular football, it appears he’s willing to drop into League One. He had been linked with a move to Watford by the Athletic back in July, but that didn’t materialise.
The 19-year-old has represented England from Under 15 to Under 19 level and also has Portuguese citizenship courtesy of being born in Lisbon. He began his youth career with West Brom before the move to Arsenal, but he didn’t get senior experience with the Gunners. He was a part of the travelling party for their UEFA Europa League match against FC Zurich in 2022, and he made his first Premier League match day squad against Brentford in the same year.
After five outings in the EFL Trophy, including a goal against Swindon Town, he made the move to Aston Villa, before his first taste of proper senior football away at Swansea in February. In total, he appeared eight times for the Pilgrims as they avoided the drop back into League One.
Sousa did not avoid that drop, but as he lands at Bristol Rovers, he’ll be expecting to look up the table, not down. The Gas struggled under former boss Joey Barton, but Taylor is a steady hand who impressed during his time in charge of Exeter City. If he does complete the move, he will likely go straight into the squad for their trip to Rotherham this weekend, a game in which Taylor will return to another former club, which promises to be a tasty encounter.
Writer’s View
It does seem odd on the face of it, for Sousa to be dropping into League One, but these are the loans we expect to see at this stage of the season. It’s likely Villa would have looked for a second-tier loan for him, but now things have kicked off, and expectations have dropped slightly. That’s perhaps where the tentative Watford interest came from.
That’s no slur on Rovers, a big club with aspirations of cracking that top six this season. The Gas, like a handful of clubs in League One, will see the experiences of Oxford and Plymouth and feel as a similar-sized outfit, they can aspire to Championship promotion.
Will Sousa play a big part in that? His limited exposure to senior football leaves a lot open to interpretation, but Taylor’s side is known for playing a nice brand of football, usually with a flat back four in a 4-2-3-1 formation. That will suit the Villa man, who usually operates as a traditional left-back rather than a wing-back.
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