Aston Villa suspend Agbonlahor for smoking shisha

Aston Villa have announced that former captain, Gabriel Agbonlahor, will not play for the club during an ‘internal investigation’.

The 29-year-old was caught smoking a shisha pipe on holiday in Dubai this week, which is thought to be behind his suspension.

He will miss Saturday’s game against Chelsea at Villa Park.

Caretaker boss Eric Black said he took the decision to remove Agbonlahor from the squad because he did not want anything to “distract the players”.

He added: “I’ll speak to him again on Monday and then we’ll take it from there. He’s back in and reporting for training.

“I’m not going to go into the details because the investigation is ongoing. I want us to get back to football and football alone.”

Black is in temporary charge of Villa after Remi Garde left the club by mutual consent on Tuesday after 147 days in charge.

Villa are 12 points adrift of safety with seven games remaining.

Agbonlahor has made just 10 appearances for the Midlands outfit this season, scoring one goal.