Aston Villa must make a ruthless call on Keinan Davis in the January transfer window, after Gabriel Agbonlahor encouraged the 22-year-old to leave the club on loan.

What's the story?

Reports in the last week or so have suggested that with Villa ready to let him leave on a temporary basis, the likes of Preston North End, Huddersfield and QPR are keeping a close eye on the situation.

Now, Agbonlahor has waded into the conversation, and the former Villa striker admitted that Davis would probably be better off trying to get some first-team football elsewhere.

Speaking to Football Insider, he said: "He’s back from injury now but I’m sure Dean Smith will be looking at in January when Wesley comes back and thinking to himself now Keinan won’t be involved as much.

“Sometimes you need to go out on loan and play some games. He’s not played a lot of football in his career. He needs to go out and get some game time, score some goals in the Championship and I’m sure he’ll be back into Villa’s squad next season."

Villa must be ruthless

As Agbonlahor says, it's been a difficult first-half of the season for Davis, and the fact he's only played 41 minutes of Premier League football (with 0 starts to his name in the competition), is a bit of a worry.

Wesley of course is only just working his way back to fitness, and Dean Smith will be hoping that Ollie Watkins will stay injury-free. The Villa boss may feel like he just doesn't have enough cover up front to warrant letting Davis leave, but the cold hard fact is that the £5k-a-week earning ace just hasn't shown he can be the kind of clinical goal-scorer the side needs.

In 73 total games for the first-team, he's managed just five goals. Now, most of them aren't starts, but that's a pretty poor record even taking that into account. Dubbed "absolutely unplayable" by Jack Grealish, Villa must take the ruthless decision and let Davis leave the club on loan in January.