After breaking their transfer record to acquire Wesley Moraes from Club Brugge, Aston Villa, if L’Equipe are to be believed, could be ready to do so again before the end of the transfer window.
In what would be a huge statement of intent if they managed to pull it off, the Villains are reportedly interested in Lille’s Rafael Leao.
The French newspaper explain there are currently three offers on the Ligue 1 side’s desk, and they have originated from either Everton, Napoli, Valencia and ‘maybe Aston Villa’.
The newly promoted side are thrown in at the very end with some doubt attached to their name, perhaps because no one wants to quite believe they could actually do it.
The offers are €37.5m, €35.5m + bonuses and €32.5m + 10% of any profit from potential future sale, any of which is a huge amount of money when you take into account the fact the Villains have already spent more than £90m this transfer window while recouping absolutely nothing so far.
It’s worth noting Fulham functioned on a £100m or so transfer deficit last season, so it’s not entirely impossible for Aston Villa to do something similar, but to throw a €35m+ transfer on top of it all seems a bit much.
However, if there’s a big sale around the corner, then who knows?
We’ll have to wait for confirmation on this one first before we believe it, but it’s certainly something to (maybe) get excited about.
