Comment: Gabriel Agbonlahor leaves Aston Villa with a complicated legacy

Yet when Gabriel Agbonlahor leaves Villa this summer, there will be no ticker-tape parade.

This week’s news of the striker’s impending exit was welcomed by the vast majority of supporters.

Time heals, a little, but there can be no ignoring the fact most have never forgiven the club’s former captain - and current longest-serving player – for his behaviour during the 2015-16 season, which ended in Villa’s relegation from the Premier League.

To fully understand Agbonlahor’s story, however, requires looking at the full picture.

There is perhaps no other player in Villa’s history who will leave such a complex legacy and to appreciate the lows, you must also study the highs. Once, there were plenty of the latter.

Arguably the greatest frustration of Agbonlahor’s career is that he showed such application and desire to establish himself in the first place.

A little younger than the Moore brothers, Luke and Stefan, his exploits in the youth ranks were often overlooked due to the expectations placed on the much-lauded siblings.

Yet it was Agbonlahor, blessed with pace and power, who had the drive and determination to make the most of his raw materials and become a first-team regular.

During the 2007-08 season, he was an integral part of one of the most exciting Villa teams of recent decades, helping them to plunder 71 goals over the course of the campaign.

It was also that season which brought the first of his derby winners against Blues. There would be three in total, while Agbonlahor also struck the final goal in Villa’s 5-1 hammering of their rivals in April 2008.

At that point, his career was only on one trajectory and a first England cap, earned in November of that year, felt like the first of many. Even now, it is difficult to pinpoint a precise moment when things began to turn. Certainly, Martin O’Neill’s exit from Villa in August 2010 and the subsequent breaking up of a promising team were huge factors.

While Ashley Young, Stewart Downing and James Milner all went on to bigger things, Agbonlahor remained.

It wouldn’t be until April 2016 things finally came to a head. Having been a passenger for much of a torrid campaign, Agbonlahor was removed from first-team training and placed on a personal fitness programme. Then, later in the month, he was photographed out partying on the night Villa’s relegation was confirmed and was forced to resign the club captaincy in disgrace.

In truth, the rot had set in long before and the statistics for the later years of Agbonlahor’s career make sobering reading.

Of his 391 total appearances for Villa, 300 came before September 2013. Since being rewarded with a new contract in September 2014, meanwhile, Agbonlahor has made 71 appearances, scoring only eight goals, including just one in each of the last three seasons.

The arrival of Steve Bruce in October 2016 brought a return to the first-team. There was even another winner against Blues. Yet in recent months it had become increasingly apparent Agbonlahor was yesterday’s man.

Whatever happens in the coming years, he will be able to reflect on the kind of career of which many professionals can only dream – but for the inescapable truth that, much like Villa, it could and should have delivered so much more.