Now fifth on the list of most expensive Aston Villa players of all time after their big summer spend, Wesley Moraes remains an expensive failure for the Villa Park side.
Part of it is just awful luck, with the Brazilian rupturing his cruciate ligament in early 2020, which saw him miss 40 games and a whole year of football, but even when he was fit, the now 24-year-old struggled to get into the swings in the Premier League.
Scoring just six goals in 26 appearances for the Villans, Wesley was sent on loan to his former club, Club Brugge, in the summer in hope that he would get regular game time, but that hasn’t happened.
The striker has only appeared four times under Philippe Clément this season, even struggling to make the bench at times, which begs the question: what are Aston Villa going to do?
The big problem with all this is that the Brazilian has technically already played for two clubs this season, making a one minute cameo in an Aston Villa game against Newcastle in August, as well as featuring for Club Brugge in a handful of competitions.
Since FIFA don’t allow players to feature for more than two clubs in official games in a season, it seems a January transfer for Wesley is currently out of the question.
That means he appears stuck in Belgium, where Clément doesn’t seem interested in using him, unless Steven Gerrard decides he can make use of him during the second half of the campaign.
As for Lazio, they will have to look elsewhere.
