Kortney Hause leaves Watford and returns to Aston Villa

Watford have confirmed that Kortney Hause has left the club and returned to Aston Villa.

The central defender who is currently suffering with a knee injury wasn’t named in the Championship club’s squad for the remainder of the season that was officially released on Wednesday.

Hause will remain registered to Watford for the remainder of the season and therefore they will continue to pay their contribution to his salary agreed between the teams when the season-long loan was signed in August without a break clause.

The Professional Footballers Association (PFA) has been engaged in discussions with both clubs on the matter. Aston Villa are now supervising his medical treatment and rehabilitation programme.

The Athletic highlighted in early January that Watford intended for Hause to return to his parent club due to injury. Hause had only been able to feature three times for Watford after being brought in when Rob Edwards, who had worked with him at Wolves, was still in charge.

After being an unused substitute during the game against QPR in August, the 27-year-old made his first appearance from the bench for 11 minutes in the 2-1 victory over Middlesbrough. He then completed 90 minutes against Rotherham (1-1) and Sunderland (2-2) in September. The latter being Edwards’ last game in charge.

Hause was then an unused substitute in Slaven Bilic’s first game against Stoke (October 2) and most recently against Wigan (October 29), but didn’t feature in a matchday squad after that.

The Athletic revealed that Watford were looking for a left-footed centre-back during the January transfer window and subsequently signed Wesley Hoedt from Anderlecht to replace Hause.

Due to Craig Cathcart picking up a groin injury in training on Tuesday Hoedt is set to make his debut against Blackburn Rovers at Vicarage Road alongside fellow new signing from Hibernian Ryan Porteous, who scored on his debut against Reading.

Striker Rey Manaj was also omitted from the Watford squad and the club announced that they had agreed to terminate his contract after a similar run of bad luck with injuries.

The Albania international played just seven times and scored one goal after a summer arrival on a three year deal. The terms of the deal agreed in the summer was that his former club Barcelona wouldn’t receive an initial fee but would have first refusal and 50 per cent of any future sale and a bonus if Watford achieved promotion to the Premier League within two years.

Manaj had previously been on loan at Spezia in Serie A but they hadn’t taken up an option to sign up for £2.2 million. They had paid a loan fee of £250,000 and covered Manaj’s wages for the season.

“You have a good centre back and a good striker and then suddenly they are not there and they’ve never been there (due to injury),” said Bilic on the situations faced by Hause and Manaj. “I’m sorry for Rey, he did a couple of weeks in Spain and during the World Cup break and he was showing that he was a proper striker, (having an) obsession with scoring goals in the six yard box. Unfortunately he came on against Hull and did the same thing (injured same hamstring that had ruled him out previously) and the club had no option but to release him.”

Dan Gosling was also omitted from the Watford squad for the remainder of the season due to a Achilles injury. It was explained to The Athletic by a club spokesperson that Watford were given special dispensation by the EFL to sign Leandro Bacuna as a free agent and add him to the squad in December on the proviso that Gosling (the player he was replacing) was ruled out for the rest of season. Therefore Gosling could not be named in the squad January.

Watford only named 24 players in their squad, and have one space remaining which in theory could be filled by a free agent signing outside of the transfer window. Bilic explained the reasoning behind the decision and it was more focused on what didn’t happen during the January transfer window.

“We tried to get a couple of (additional) players (during the January transfer window), midfielder and winger, but we didn’t get them. If we got a couple then one of the players who are on the list would not be on the list.”

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