Player #868 for Aston Villa, Aly Cissokho played as a right back for the club in Villa’s 2014-15 and 2015-16 Premier League campaigns, with the latter ending in Villa’s first relegation from the top tier in nearly 30 years. Carlos made 56 appearances and scored once. Cissokho also featured in Villa’s Football League Championship campaign of 2016-17 making 58 appearances for the club in total.

Aly was born in Blois on 15 September 1987.

Paul Lambert had signed Cissokho from Valencia CF for £2,250,000 on 8 August 2014 and his arrival was one of a number of sub-standard Villa signings that maligned the club throughout the 2015-16 campaign and drove Villa to their first relegation in nearly 30 years. Players such as Cissokho as well as Jordan Ayew, Jordan Veretout, Adama Traoré, Rudy Gestede, Joleon Lescott and José Ángel Crespo were brought to the club despite being nowhere near the standard for a top flight player and Villa paid the price.

Gone were the lower league imports and in came an equally unfathomable approach - signing ageing, faltering and in some cases downright failed players with ‘Big 6’ club history but who had long ago discarded them.

In summary, Cissokho, an ex-loanee to Liverpool, arrived, was given chances by successive managers but simply wasn’t up to the standards required and spent significant periods out on loan before being released.

Cissokho made his debut appearance for Villa on Saturday, 16 August 2014 aged 26 in the 1-0 win at Stoke City and went on to play in 24 of Villa’s 25 Premier League games under Paul Lambert before the latter’s dismissal.

Cissokho however would only make a single substitute appearance under Lambert’s successor Tim Sherwood before injury ruled Cissokho out of first team consideration for the season.

2015-16 saw interim manager Sherwood surprisingly kept in post and with a major, though disjointed overhaul of the squad having taken place in the close season, it was not clear how often Cissokho would appear in the first team and he was duly sent out on loan to FC Porto until December 2015.

On his return to Villa, Sherwood was gone and had been replaced by Rémi Garde who reinstated Cissokho to the first team, with Garde, and subsequently caretaker manager Eric Black, starting Cissokho in 18 of Villa’s final 19 Premier League matches in a run of games that saw Villa lose 14, draw 3 and win 2 as their inevitable relegation to the Football League Championship was sealed.

For 2016-17 and another new manager and squad overall, Roberto Di Matteo once again gave Cissokho the opportunity to impress and started Cissokho in 10 of the 11 Championship in which he remained in charge, however with the club won just one league game, Di Matteo was relieved of his duties.

Di Matteo’s successor Steve Bruce started Cissokho in his first two matches in charge as Villa added a second win of the season but then relegated Cissokho to an unused substitute for the following 8 matches before dropping him from the squad completely.

Bruce sent Cissokho out on loan to Olympiacos Piraeus from January 2017 to the season end before moving him on to Yeni Malatyaspor in August 2017 on a free transfer aged 29.

Cissokho had made his final appearance for Villa on Tuesday, 18 October 2016 aged 29 in Villa’s 2-1 away win over Reading.

Cissokho played under Paul Lambert, Scott Marshall & Andy Marshall, Tim Sherwood, Rémi Garde, Eric Black, Roberto Di Matteo and Steve Bruce.