Aston Villa could take Newcastle United by surprise with a bid for a £17 million winger.

Signing a new right winger is on Aston Villa’s to-do list this summer as Leon Bailey is expected to be sold imminently to help the club’s sticky financial situation.

The Villans still need to make a significant sale or several to comply with the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR), while it’s also a necessity to reduce the wage bill due to UEFA’s squad cost rules (SCR) growing increasingly stricter. Bailey, out of sorts last season, is among those on the chopping block.

Saudi Arabian club Neom SC were briefly linked with Bailey at the start of this month but the move hasn’t come to fruition. Other Saudi clubs are thought to be interested, while Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur both failed with approaches in the winter. Villa are understood to value Bailey at around £25 million.

Letting Bailey leave to help sort the PSR and SCR situations is all well and good but Villa will be left short on the right wing once he’s gone. Who could Unai Emery target to replace him, then? Well, the Villans are unlikely to make any approaches before the June 30 PSR deadline has passed but that doesn’t mean the club isn’t working away on a shortlist in the background.

Aston Villa could hijack Newcastle swoop for £17m winger

One player Villa could target to replace Bailey is PSV Eindhoven’s Johan Bakayoko, who has been the subject of interest from the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal, Newcastle United, Brentford, Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund and Olympique Marseille in the past 12 months.

Although Villa are yet to be linked to Bakayoko themselves, he’s bound to be at least on the radar as he’s been one of the most impressive wingers in the Dutch Eredivisie for the past two and a half seasons. The 22-year-old scored 12 goals and provided nine assists in 33 league matches throughout 2023/24 and backed that up with nine goals and one assist in 30 Eredivisie games last term.

When Bakayoko was linked to the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal and Newcastle in the winter, a price tag of around £35 million was being quoted. The winger is now reportedly available for less than half of that, with PSV open to a £17 million sale following Bakayoko’s poor run of form since the turn of the year.

That’s according to a report from The Chronicle, which suggests Newcastle maintain a strong interest in signing the 18-time Belgium international. The Magpies recently saw a £45 million bid rejected for Nottingham Forest’s Anthony Elanga and are weighing up an approach for Bakayoko as an alternative.

Villa, albeit unable to spend too freely until their financial situation is addressed, could ruin Newcastle’s plan by making a bid of their own. At such a low price point in the current market, Bakayoko could be a great bargain option who would likely be happy to rotate in on the right wing when Morgan Rogers is deployed in the number 10 role.

Bakayoko better than Bailey in most departments

Despite notching fewer assists and registering fewer goal-creating actions last season, Bakayoko was better than Bailey in pretty much every other department. The PSV academy product was far superior in so many statistics, including but not limited to: passes attempted, passes completed, shots on target, goals, carries into the penalty area, carries into the final third, successful take-ons, shot-creating actions, key passes and progressive carry distance.

All of those metrics are extremely important for wingers and will have been picked up by Newcastle’s scouts. If Villa have been having a look, they will have seen similar. Now, Bakayoko competing in an easier league than Bailey, but he was head and shoulders above the Jamaican.

Would you like to see Villa sign Bakayoko? Let us know in the comments section.