Thursday 27 October 2016 19:00, UK
New Aston Villa boss Steve Bruce has told Gabby Agbonlahor he still has a future at the club, despite the striker not playing for more than six months.
Agbonlahor started his career at Villa and has made almost 400 appearances for the club, but has not featured since March due to a series of discipline and fitness problems.
Bruce, however, handed a first appearance of the season to Micah Richards in his first game in charge against Wolves in October, and has said that no player will be written off over past indiscretions.
"I've said to all the players here they've all got a clean slate and I'm not interested in what happened before," Bruce told Sky Sports. "Micah has a bit of a knee problem at the moment but he played the first game for me and Gabby is the same.
"He needs to get himself in better condition, he understands that and he's been doing that for the last two weeks.
"He's only 30 and he's played his whole life in the big league, so I'm not just going to discard him over what's happened in the past."
Villa only won one of their first 11 games of the season in the Championship, but have collected seven points from three games since Bruce took over.
Next up for Villa is a trip to Bruce's former club Birmingham on Sunday, live on Sky Sports.
