Clément Lenglet is on the verge of leaving Barcelona and signing for Aston Villa, if reports in Spain are to be believed.
AS and Sport on Wednesday both have articles bringing the latest of this surprising saga, although the information is a bit different.
Starting with the former, they explain that Lenglet, who knew he wasn’t a first-choice at Barcelona this season, ‘accepts’ the offer on the table by Aston Villa and is travelling to England this afternoon.
He will then undergo his medical, and it’s stated that ‘in principle’, the Villans will take charge of his entire wages, which is estimated at €16m before tax.
The reason why it’s that much is that Lenglet, like others at Barcelona, agreed to defer his wages during the pandemic to help the club, who are now in a position to have to pay him back.
Following a near three hour meeting on Wednesday, he ‘ended up accepting’ Aston Villa’s offer after it was confirmed that Tottenham, where he spent last season on loan, had ‘finally backed out’.
By releasing Lenglet for the season, AS explain that Barcelona have freed up €4m in ‘fair play’, which still isn’t enough to register players to their squad, but it’s certainly helped.
What sounds a bit fishy in all this is that it seems unlikely that Aston Villa would have had to agree to paying the backlog of wages to get a deal, and certainly doesn’t sound like a deal Monchi would want to take part in.
In short, it could be Barcelona trying to make it sound like a far better deal than it actually is, and, in fact, over at Sport, the information is a tad different, although they do agree it’s a loan without an option to buy.
They, though, report that Aston Villa will only cover ‘the majority of the player’s salary’, and their information is Unai Emery’s side have agreed to be ‘responsible for approximately 75% of Lenglet’s salary’, while Barcelona will pay the remaining part.
Therefore, it certainly doesn’t sound like the Premier League side will be covering that backlog of wages, and will simply help Barcelona out a bit, but not entirely, by taking him off their hands for the next 10 months or so.
