Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace have moved to hijack Aston Villa’s move for Club Brugge defender Joël Ordoñez. They are seeking a replacement for Maxence Lacroix.

Journalist Sacha Tavolieri reports that there is now an agreement in place between Crystal Palace and Brugge for the Ecuadorian defender.

That, it seems, has now put them in front of Unai Emery’s side in the pecking order. But a deal cannot be completed quickly. That is because Joël Ordoñez is currently nursing an injury. Therefore, any deal is subject to him passing a medical.

Lacroix replacement?

Tavolieri makes no mention of the nature of the deal that Crystal Palace have agreed with Club Brugge at this point. Ordoñez is currently rated at €33m by Transfermarkt.

Palace have money to spend, of course, after Lacroix’s €60.7m move to Chelsea earlier this summer. However, Chadi Riad’s injury against Everton also means that they need to enter the market for a new centre-back before the window closes.

Now it seems they’ve stepped ahead of Aston Villa for the 22-year-old centre-back. Unai Emery’s side had made the defender one of their top targets to replace Ezri Konsa. He left to join Arsenal earlier this month.

Aston Villa effort

Sport Witness covered a report yesterday explaining that Aston Villa officials had travelled to Belgium to try and seal the deal.

A second report on Wednesday then explained that the Villans were making a strong push to get a deal over the line.

Those reports explained that Brugge had initially been seeking a €40m valuation for the defender. But that price was likely to have fallen given the defender’s recent injury.

He’s currently suffering from a metatarsal fracture suffered at the beginning of July. He’s already spent 57 days out of action with it.

That’s not put off the Premier League duo. But they will want to ensure he can pass a medical before even considering spending big sums on him.

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