Aston Villa were one of the Premier League’s busiest clubs in the January transfer window, but failed to land almost as many of their targets as they ultimately signed, it has been revealed.
Aston Villa's transfer window
Unai Emery welcomed five new faces to his squad in the January transfer window, though only two arrived on permanent deals at Villa Park. The biggest deal of their window saw the Villans agree a loan deal to sign Marcus Rashford for the second half of the 24/25 campaign, with the club agreeing to pay a minimum of 75% of the forward’s wages and up to 90% of them based on performances in a Villa shirt.
Elsewhere, they also bolstered their attack with the permanent arrival of Donyell Malen from Borussia Dortmund, who set the club back £21m, and Marco Asensio arrived on loan on transfer deadline day.
Though they ultimately lost Jhon Duran to Al-Nassr, Villa fans will be hoping that the three attacking additions should more than cover his position and that of little-used forward Jaden Philogene, who was sold to Ipswich Town six months after returning to Villa.
There were also new faces added at the back with both Diego Carlos and Kosta Nedeljković departing the club, the former sealing a permanent exit and the Serbian defender moving to RB Leipzig on loan with an option to buy.
Player
Fee
Donyell Malen
£21m
Andres Garcia
£5.5m
Marco Asensio
Loan
Marcus Rashford
Loan
Axel Disasi
Loan
In their place, Villa added Andres Garcia from the Spanish second-tier, before pulling off a late loan move to sign Axel Disasi from Chelsea to add a centre-back to their ranks. Coming in the final hours of transfer deadline day, Disasi was the culmination of a long search for a new defender that had begun much earlier, in a very different place.
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Now, The Athletic have provided some insight into Villa’s attempts to land a new defender, and revealed that the club had actually tried to sign three alternatives before they landed on the former Monaco man.
The first of those was Loic Bade, who they submitted several bids for and even met Sevilla’s asking price to sign the Frenchman (£21.6m). However, it is claimed that Bade ‘had doubts concerning game time and the presence of Ezri Konsa in the right centre-back position’, which meant that he opted not to move to the Midlands and instead remained with the Andalusian side, where he still has four years left to run on his £68,000 a week deal.
Following that, Villa briefly attempted to sign PSG outcast Milan Skriniar, but were put off by his mammoth £264,000 a week wages, though his move to Turkey has since seen those wages slashed.
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Finally, Emery’s side began exploring a deal to sign Juan Foyth, and Emery was keen to reunite with the former defender after their time spent together with Villarreal. However, that appetite was not shared by the hierarchy, who were concerned by the Argentine’s injury record and, as a result, “no agreement was close” even though Foyth is down to the final 18 months of his £33k a week deal in Spain.
In the end, Villa opted to keep their financial powder dry for the summer window with a low cost loan move.