Free transfer will force Aston Villa to take action this summer

Aston Villa goalkeeper Robin Olsen is set to leave the club at the end of the season and return to his native Sweden with Malmo, according to reports. Olsen joined the club initially on loan in 2022 during the tenure of Steven Gerrard before making the move a permanent arrangement the following summer.

The 35-year-old has generally played second fiddle to first choice goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez throughout the course of his spell at Villa Park, making just 21 appearances in that time and conceding 42 goals, keeping four clean sheets.

Villa this term have required Olsen to play in three Premier League matches; at both Chelsea and Crystal Palace he replaced Martinez at half time after the Argentine had struggled with injury and, after the Palace defeat, he played the full game as the Lions beat Brentford 1-0 in London in March.

Elsewhere, Olsen - who has, when fit, remained a regular member of the squad despite the arrival of Australian Joe Gauci last January - also featured in the FA Cup win over West Ham back in January but his only other run-out this term has come for Sweden, in a friendly defeat to minnows Luxembourg last month.

Olsen is one of two senior Villa players whose contracts expire this summer; while Kortney Hause's time at the club will also come to an end, Olsen is set to return to the Allsvenskan with Malmo, who are currently sixth and four points off the top of the table in the early stages of the new campaign.

Sportbladet, via Sport Witness, claim that Olsen has agreed to return to Malmo, his boyhood club and place of his birth. He came through the academy there before playing regularly between 2012 and 2015 - then came moves to Greece, Italy and, more recently, England, but an emotional return to Malmo would appear to await him in the summer.

Olsen was spotted celebrating in the dressing room with the Malmo players back in November after they clinched their second successive Swedish title, and fourth in the space of five years. Malmo boss Henrik Rydström said: “I saw him the day before on TV on the bench when Aston Villa played. Suddenly he was standing in our dressing room.”

Villa will welcome Gauci back from his loan spell at Barnsley at the end of the season; he has struggled with an injury while at Oakwell but returned to the starting XI for the draw with Peterborough United on Easter Monday - his first appearance since February. It's likely Villa, though, will source another keeper this summer in the event Olsen takes his leave.

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