Aston Villa 'planning' audacious £63m double transfer raid as summer transfer window plans develop

The January transfer window was a busy one for Aston Villa, with five new faces arriving as the club earned an estimated £90m in outgoing transfers – but Unai Emery and sporting director Monchi are already laying the groundwork for next summer’s transfer business.

Villa may have snapped up both Marcus Rashford and Marco Asensio to bolster their attacking options and added Chelsea’s Axel Disasi at the back, but all three were signed on loan deals and the club appear keen to make some permanent signings in those positions, at least according to a report from TBR Football which was published on Thursday.

They claim that Emery is set to attempt a double deal with his former club Villarreal, with “keen” on both centre-back Juan Foyth, who was repeatedly linked with a move to Villa Park over the winter, and eight-cap Spain international Alex Baena, who plays either as a winger or a number ten.

It’s claimed that Villa held talks over both players over the course of January but Villarreal decided not to sell mid-season and Monchi seems to have opted not to have triggered either player’s release clause, which are reportedly set at €52m (£43m) and €60m (£50m) respectively. The rumoured asking price of the pair in January added up to around £63m.

Villa looking for permanent solutions next summer

Villa were widely reported to be looking into signing former Tottenham defender Foyth over the past month, but instead ended up reaching a loan agreement with Disasi to fill the void left by the departure of Diego Carlos to Fenerbahce and a significant injury to Pau Torres.

27-year-old Foyth, who has 18 caps for Argentina and was a member of the 2022 World Cup winning squad, has been with the Yellow Submarine since 2020 but has only made 82 league appearances in five seasons due to persistent bad luck with injuries. It was Emery who first signed Foyth for Villarreal and he was his coach for two years.

Baena, meanwhile, is a versatile 23-year-old forward and attacking midfielder who has stood as one of the rising stars of La Liga over the last two seasons. He only had two senior appearances under his belt when Emery arrived at Villarreal, and it was under the current Villa manager’s tutelage that he broke into the first team in earnest, making 20 appearances in the 2020/21 season before spending the following year, the last of Emery’s tenure, on loan at Girona.

New signings not guaranteed to stay

The moves for Baena and Foyth may only be necessary if deadline day signings Rashford, Asensio and Disasi leave the club at the end of the season. There is a purchase option in Rashford’s deal, reported to stand at £40m, but that is not the case for either Asensio or Disasi.

Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea are likely to be open to a permanent deal for either player, but should the finances prove to be untenable, or if their performance levels don’t meet Emery’s standards, then players like Baena and Foyth could be a strong Plan B, and they “remain high on [Villa’s] shortlist”, according to TBR Football’s report, despite the new signings.

Tottenham are also credited with interest in Baena, who has previously been linked with a move to both Nottingham Forest and Atletico Madrid, and having scored 22 goals in the last three seasons he is likely to be in demand thanks to his relatively affordable release clause.