Player #869 for Aston Villa, Philippe Sylvain Senderos played as a centre back for the club in Villa’s 2014-15 Premier League campaign making 9 appearances.

Senderos was born in Genf, Switzerland on 14 February 1985.

Paul Lambert had signed Senderos from Valencia CF on a free transfer in July 2014 in a total about turn on transfer policy. 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, Senderos, ex-Arsenal, arrived and to the surprise of no-one got injured after looking decidedly shaky even on his best days.

Senderos made his debut on the opening day of Villa’s 2014-15 season in the 1-0 win at Stoke City on Saturday, 16 August 2014 aged 29. To the surprise of many Lambert’s team made the best start to a campaign since John Gregory’s in 1998-99 during which time Senderos made five consecutive appearances. However results became more reminiscent of life under Lambert as had been the case in the two previous campaigns with Villa going on a run of 6 heavy defeats, scoring once and conceding 15. Senderos played in three of those games before getting injured and although he returned 3 games later as an 88’ substitute for Nathan Baker as secured a 0-0 draw at West Ham United on Saturday, 8 November 2014 he never played for Villa again.

Senderos was released by Villa on a free transfer in January 2016 aged 30.