Five players Aston Villa could sign after Europa League triumph - including Liverpool star
Aston Villa are likely to be busy in the summer transfer window - we look at five players seemingly on their shortlist.
Just how far can Aston Villa go in the coming years? Under Unai Emery, they’ve ended a 30-year wait for a major trophy after defeating Freiburg to win the Europa League in Istanbul and re-established themselves as very serious top four contenders. A second Champions League campaign in three seasons beckons. There is a sense of a club that is still ascending, that has yet to climb as far as it can.
Getting their business right in the coming transfer window will certainly help them to take a step towards achieving yet more, and their return to the continent’s grandest club competition should help them to attract talent – but who will they try to sign this summer? We’ve pulled together five of the more plausible (and better-sourced) transfer stories doing the rounds to get a picture of Aston Villa’s likely dealings.
Vangelis Pavlidis
Finding a centre-forward who can supplement (and potentially supplant) the 30-year-old Ollie Watkins will be a necessity this summer, and one of the strikers seemingly on Aston Villa’s shopping list is Greek international Vangelis Pavlidis, who boasts an impressive scoring record for current club Benfica.
Pavlidis has 60 goals in 106 games for the Portuguese outfit since moving there two years ago, and is effective both off the shoulder of the last defender and when linking up play in deeper areas. Plenty of forwards who score for fun in Portugal (and the Netherlands, where Pavlidis scored bucketloads with AZ Alkmaar earlier in his career) fail to take the step up to a slightly higher level, but on paper the 27-year-old has the right skillset to make it work.
Portuguese newspaper O Jogo report that Villa are monitoring Pavlidis, although there’s also interest from Tottenham Hotspur, AC Milan and AS Roma. Villa’s combination of Premier League funding and Champions League qualification could give them an edge over their alleged rivals if they do launch a bid, however. It’s not clear how much Benfica might demand for one of their best players, and nor is it suggested that any negotiations have yet taken place.
Maxi Araújo
Another Portugal-based player seemingly on Aston Villa’s radar, Uruguayan wing-back Araújo is a buccaneering player who would add attacking flair down the left-hand side even if he isn’t necessarily noted as a first-rate defender.
A more direct option that a player like Lucas Digne (and certainly rather quicker), Araújo would be a gamble but it seems to be one that quite a few Premier League clubs are considering – Manchester United, Newcastle, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur have been mentioned as potential suitors, too.
A few different media outlets have discussed Araújo’s future, including Sport Witness, and there appears to be a consensus that current club Sporting would be looking to earn around €50m (£43m) from a sale. It’s not yet clear that Aston Villa will take this particular plunge, but he may well be among the players being assessed.
Mandela Keita
Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport are among sources suggesting that Villa are also considering a bid for 24-year-old Parma midfielder Mandela Keita, an international team-mate of Amadou Onana’s who could end up working alongside him in the Premier League next season.
A destructive ball-winning midfielder who would address the need for depth in the midfield pivot, adding Keita to the squad would help to avert the need for stop-gap measures such as playing Victor Lindelöf in the centre of the pitch, not that that particular plan hasn’t been surprising effective.
A driving ball-carrier who can surge upfield with the ball, Keita isn’t just a defensive midfielder but a well-rounded talent who should pair nicely with Onana if signed. Expect £35-40m to be the ballpark figure that Parma are looking for. A few other clubs have been linked too, but Villa’s name comes up more often than most.
Abde Ezzalzouli
It would take a similar fee to sign Morocco international Ezzalzouli from Real Betis after the winger put up a 14-goal season in La Liga, but Betis’ financial situation means that they are open to a sale despite the player’s importance to a club that just qualified for the Champions League again themselves.
A former Barcelona prospect, the 24-year-old – who usually plays on the left flank – is a pressing machine with excellent finishing instincts and a useful final ball (he put up nine assists in the Spanish top flight this season), and has the combination of work ethic and productivity that Emery appears to value. Assuming that the club don’t attempt to sign Jadon Sancho, Ezzalzouli could easily fill his spot on the team.
Spanish newspaper Sport suggest that Villa and Newcastle are both monitoring Ezzalzouli heading into the summer, although the player himself is supposedly keen to stay in Iberia if he can.
Curtis Jones
Another midfielder who seems to be firmly on Aston Villa’s radar – the Liverpool man may not be as effective off the ball as Keita but he has the technical quality and positional versatility to be an extremely useful addition if Emery does indeed get his hands on Jones.
The Times and TalkSport are among outlets to report Villa’s interest, which appears to be sincere, and with Jones both entering the final year of his contract at Anfield and struggling to nail down a regular starting spot under Arne Slot, it shouldn’t be too difficult for Villa to get a deal done if they do indeed want to.
We’d expect £30m to be sufficient under the circumstances, and also believe that this is the player most likely of any named here to make the move to Villa Park, both because of the strength of the reports making the link and because they seem to have less competition for this particular deal.