Player #935 for Aston Villa, Frédéric Guilbert, has played as a right back for the club since the 2019-20 season.

Frédéric was born in Valognes, France on 24 December 1994 and made his debut appearance in the Villa squad at the age of 24 on Friday, 23 August 2019 whilst also making his playing debut in the 2-0 home win over Everton.

Villa had signed Frédéric from SM Caen on 31 January 2019 for a fee of £4,500,000 but immediately loaned him back to his former club until 31 May 2019.

Guilbert adapted well to life in the Premier League especially for a player who the club had apparently bought expecting another season in the second tier of English football. Villa’s gain however was also Guilbert’s and he rewarded the club with 29 appearances, including Villa’s ninth League Cup final, 2 goals and 2 assists.

It was a surprise therefore that Guilbert was linked with a move away from the club given his successful first season.

The arrival of Matty Cash and the preference for the veteran Ahmed Elmohamady as back up meant Guilbert’s 2020-21 opportunities were indeed limited but happily the club did not part ways with a player who deserved to be part of their squad.

Frédéric was returned to the first team squad from the win over Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday, 12 December 2020 but despite five squad appearances to the turn of the year he was yet to make a league appearance for the club in 2020-21.

It was however still a shock when, on 31 January 2021, Guilbert was allowed to leave Villa to join RC Strasbourg Alsace on loan to the end of the season after having not been named in the squad for Villa’s previous two games versus Burnley and Southampton.

Dean Smith revealed the thinking behind the move “We bought Matty Cash in at the start of this season because we felt he was a good-value, quality signing from the Championship who’s done ever so well, we’ve also got Elmo (Elmohamady) here and (Guilbert) probably wasn’t going to get the minutes with us having three right-backs. We want him to go out on loan, get minutes under his belt and come back here in the summer.”

Although Ahmed Elmohamady had earned the right through his historic performances and commitment to the Villa cause it was still a surprise that he was being preferred to the more dynamic Guilbert. The subsequent injury to Matty Cash proved the folly of Smith’s move as Elmohamady struggled on his return to the line up and often looked off the pace of the game. Meanwhile Guilbert’s successful, goalscoring return to Ligue 1 caused further concern amongst the Villa faithful that a potentially key member of the squad had been lost - although allegedly on a temporary basis - for no good reason whatsoever.