Player #891 for Aston Villa, Ross McCormack played as a forward for the club between 2016-17 and 2017-18, making 24 appearances, scoring three goals.

McCormack was born in Glasgow on 18 August 1986 and was signed from Fulham under Roberto Di Matteo for a fee of £12,870,000 on 4 August 2016.

McCormack made his debut appearance for Villa in the 0-1 Championship defeat at Sheffield Wednesday on Sunday, 7 August 2016, at the age of 29 in what was the opening game of Villa’s first season in the second tier since 1987.

McCormack would make 8 successive appearances under Di Matteo and scored his first goal for the club in the 1-1 draw with Huddersfield Town on Tuesday, 16 August 2016. McCormack followed that up with a goal in the Championship draw with Nottingham Forest on Sunday, 11 September 2016 but then McCormack disappeared from first-team view under Di Matteo, with his next start coming under new Villa boss Steve Bruce on Saturday, 15 October 2016.

McCormack, just two months after his arrival, was already a sporadic and fitful feature of the first team, and after alternating between starts and substitute appearances for the following two months, McCormack hit his third goal for the club, and first under Bruce in the 2-1 Championship win over Burton Albion on Monday, 26 December 2016.

Already, Bruce was losing patience with McCormack, and he was eventually absent from first-team consideration and sent out on loan for the remainder of his debut season to Championship rivals Nottingham Forest.

McCormack had looked a good Championship player during his time with Leeds United earlier in the decade, and with a scoring rate of over 1 in 3, a big-money move was predictable. Whilst a nigh on £11m move to Fulham was an unexpected destination, and suggested not everything was motivated by results on the pitch for McCormack, he put in a good showing despite there being rumours of issues behind the scenes at Craven Cottage with McCormack.

On a purely footballing basis, Villa’s acquisition of McCormack was an understandable one. 91 Championship goals in 233 games suggested someone who could fire Villa back to the top flight at the first attempt, and as a result, they were persuaded to part with the thick end of £13m for McCormack’s services.

For the 2017-18 season, McCormack returned to Villa from his loan spell, but the trust had gone between him and Steve Bruce, and he made just two appearances in the EFL Cup before being sent out on loan once again, this time to Melbourne City until the end of January 2018. On his return, McCormack remained out of first team consideration, and it was clear there would be no rapprochement with Bruce to allow him to return to favour.

Indeed, McCormack would not appear under Bruce again, and by the time of the latter’s dismissal in October 2018, McCormack had been sent out on loan once again to Australian A League outfit Central Coast Mariners.

With the arrival of Dean Smith as Steve Bruce’s replacement and the change in football philosophy, the question of McCormack’s re-emergence was a topical one; however, on the expiry of his loan arrangement with Central Coast Mariners, he was immediately shipped out by Smith to Motherwell, never to play for Villa again.

McCormack had made his final appearance for Villa on Tuesday, 19 September 2017, aged 31 and was released by Villa in June 2019, aged 32.

Whatever issues were causing McCormack problems earlier in his career, clearly they skyrocketed at Villa and resulted in one of the most embarrassing and undignified stays with Villa. That McCormack remains popular with many of the members of the Villa squad he fleetingly played alongside makes the episode all the more curious.

One positive from the whole affair was that the post-2016 Villa were no longer the sort of club that put up with disruptive nonsense.

McCormack played under Roberto Di Matteo and Steve Bruce.