He's now worth more than Duran: Villa almost signed world-class CF for £8m

With a shot of holding the FA Cup aloft, on top of successfully finishing in the top eight of the refreshed Champions League structure, Aston Villa will now turn their attention to correcting their waning Premier League form for the rest of February.

Unai Emery’s Villans haven’t won in the bread and butter of the top-flight since mid-January away at Everton, with a couple of underwhelming draws coming their way since, alongside a damaging 2-0 defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers knocking their confidence last time out.

Three home games on the bounce do give Emery and Co a healthy chance of picking up some much-needed wins, with the former Arsenal boss no doubt boosted by a superb winter transfer window too.

Aston Villa’s sensational winter transfer window

Indeed, even with Jhon Duran‘s departure to Al-Nassr hitting Villa hard in the striker department, the Premier League side still managed to exit the transfer window as strong winners.

The bumper window saw the statement trio of Axel Disasi, Marcus Rashford and Marco Asensio all enter the building on short-term deals, with the last two players named already impressing at Villa Park versus Spurs.

The former Real Madrid midfielder stood out in particular with his easy-on-the-eye approach which culminated in a number of tricks and flicks coming off, on top of a 100% pass accuracy also being registered.

Emery will hope these new loanees can help his side surge up the table back into top four contention, therefore, with his faltering team currently six points off Chelsea occupying that coveted fourth spot.

Whilst they have been able to flex their muscles this window with Rashford and Co, they haven’t always had such great luck when it comes to big incomings through the door, with one move for a future superstar back in 2021 going awry.

One that got away

The transfers that nearly happened but never did. This article is part of Football FanCast’s One That Got Away series.

The “outstanding” ace Aston Villa nearly signed

If you cast your mind back to the West Midlands outfit four years ago, Champions League football would have been viewed as somewhat of a distant pipedream.

Villa ended up finishing in a mediocre 11th spot come the end of the 2020/21 season, having only just survived the campaign before courtesy of homegrown star Jack Grealish’s heroics.

Villa would go into the summer market back in 2021 with the aim of forking out significant wads of cash to improve, with Emiliano Buendia joining for a bumper £38m from Norwich City one notable buy.

In another reality – alongside the purchase of Buendia – Villa could have welcomed his fellow compatriot Julian Alvarez, with reports at the time suggesting that the then River Plate attacker was the subject of an enquiry from Aston Villa with talk of an £8m move on the cards.

Unfortunately, no such move would take place, with Manchester City then gaining Alvarez’s services for £14m in the summer of 2022, which went down as an extremely savvy investment.

The “outstanding” South American – as he was labelled by Pep Guardiola – eventually bowed out from his time in Manchester by collecting a hefty 53 goals and assists across 103 appearances.

This led to his next employers in Atletico Madrid having to cough up a far steeper sum than £14m to land the 25-year-old.

He ended up becoming City’s record sale at a whopping £81m, with the Spanish giants already getting the best out of Alvarez to shrug off any flop tags that could have been put above his head on his extortionate arrival.

That £81m valuation amazingly means he is worth more than both Morgan Rogers – who has a Transfermarkt valuation of £33m – and Duran’s exit fee to Al-Nassr of £65m.

Villa definitely dropped the ball not going after the 25-year-old when they could have, but Emery will know his team now is already stocked with some top talents.

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