Player #828 for Aston Villa, Christopher Herd known as Chris Herd played as a midfielder for the club between 2010-11 and 2013-14 making 42 appearances and scoring twice.

Herd was born in Melbourne on 4 April 1989 and signed for Villa from Bayswater City Sports Club in his native Australia aged 15 in 2005 alongside Shane Lowry under David O’Leary on an initial two-year YTS deal with a one-year professional contract attached.

It would however be the arrival of Gérard Houllier nearly 6 years later who would hand Herd his debut aged 21 on Saturday, 13 November 2010 in the draw with Manchester United with Herd arriving as a 90’ substitute for fellow youth team prospect Jonathan Hogg.

Herd would go on to make 3 consecutive substitute appearances before a run of 8 games in the squad and being used as a substitute on a further 2 occasions.

Houllier handed Herd his first start in the FA Cup 5th Round defeat to Manchester City on Wednesday, 2 March 2011 and followed that up with a first Premier League start on Saturday, 19 March 2011 as Villa lost at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers.

That was to prove Herd’s final first team action of his debut season and when he returned to the squad Houllier was gone, replaced by Alex McLeish.

After a slow start to 2011-12 (2 appearances in the first 12 matches) Herd was named in the starting line up for the Premier League defeat to West Bromwich Albion on Saturday, 22 October 2011 and despite that reverse Herd would have his longest run in the team to date with 7 consecutive starts before injury ruled him out of contention for the next 12 matches.

On his recovery Herd regained his place and started 11 of the final 12 matches of the season during which time he scored his first goal for Villa to earn a draw at Anfield on Saturday, 7 April 2012.

With McLeish’s departure and the arrival of Paul Lambert bringing with him a policy of recruiting and playing lower league players, Herd found games difficult to come by - starting just 4 of the first 12 matches before once again injury interrupted.

Returning in December 2012, Herd made 8 consecutive League starts that included Lambert presiding over Villa’s worst ever defeat in all competitions - losing 0-8 to Chelsea on Sunday, 23 December 2012.

Shortly thereafter Herd was once again struck down with injury and missed the remainder of the 2012-13 campaign.

It was here that one of the great enduring Villa Park mysteries began… whatever was happening with Chris Herd?

Missing 12 games through injury in 2011-12; 23 games in 2012-13 and then another 25 games in 2013-14.

Was this a case of extreme proneness to injury or was there something else happening behind the scenes causing Herd’s regular absences?

2014-15 saw Herd officially ‘injured’ once again and under both Lambert and his successor Tim Sherwood, despite 7 squad appearances Herd failed to make a first team appearance across the entire campaign.

As a result Herd’s final appearance had come on Saturday, 21 December 2013 aged 24 in the defeat at Stoke City before he was finally released by the club almost two years later in July 2015 aged 26.

There is no way a player of Herd’s capability and proven performance should have disappeared from the Villa first team, drifting between lower league and unattached status and then rocking up in Thailand, India and Bangladesh.

Perhaps we’ll never know why. In the meantime the rumour mill will remain running.