Axel Tuanzebe is facing the prospect of more frustration out on-loan with the Manchester United outcast left out of Napoli’s Europa League squad.
The 24-year-old spent the first half of the season with Aston Villa, but failed to ever break into the Premier League side’s regular starting XI.
Steven Gerrard replaced Dean Smith in the Midlands in November and the central defender saw his opportunities limited even further.
However, the Villa boss made it clear he wanted to keep Tuanzebe at the club for the entirety of the campaign, putting the ball firmly in the court of United chiefs.
“It's very much in Ax's hands and Manchester United's hands. We want him here, we would be delighted to keep him. We don't just see it as a loan until the end of the season, Gerrard explained during the January window.
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"It's something we want to explore further than that. We just hope we've got that opportunity.
“He's a player we like very much and we'd like him to stay until the end of the season at least. Axel is his own man and will want to make his own decision.
"He is obviously owned by Manchester United which we all need to respect. I hope he wants to be part of this. In terms of what he has given on a daily basis, his leadership and training levels have been really strong and he is pushing to play."
United, along with the player himself, made the decision to cut his Villa spell short, joining Italian giants Napoli at the start of 2022.
Unfortunately for Tuanzebe, who will become a free agent this summer, his prospects in Naples are no more positive than Birmingham, playing just 10 Serie A minutes from a possible five matches.
He did play in the Italian Cup, but after their elimination at the hands of Fiorentina, Napoli now only have the domestic league and Europa League to focus on.
Tuanzebe won’t be involved in the latter however, with Napoli boss Luciano Spalletti opting to not include him in his 25-man squad for the European knock-out stages.
Spalletti explained that depth in the centre-back position, compared to elsewhere on the pitch meant he became a casualty of the late cuts.
“I explain it badly, but then you have to explain to me the exclusion of another to include him,” Spalletti said last week.
"The moment you never want to be a coach is when you call a player in the office to tell him why he doesn’t make the tournament.
“At Inter [when I was in charge], I told 3-4 because there was a reduced UEFA list, there it was a massacre, you create a group of excluded players but they are calculations.
"In this case, Manolas goes out and Ghoulam comes in, he was injured, they are evaluations, the left-back is missing, there are three centre-backs with the return of Koulibaly.
"We are getting to know each other, now he has to take care of his back but he immediately joined the group, he can already speak a bit of Italian, in training, he is very good and he helps us with the counters, we thank him.”
