Aston Villa look to beat Liverpool & Leeds United to Portuguese midfielder Otavio as defender links re-emerge

Aston Villa look to have made the first move in the pursuit of well sought-after Portuguese midfielder Otavio.

That’s according to CNN Portugal who claim that the claret and blue will ‘present a proposal’ in the region of €30million plus €5million in add-ons to Porto in a bid to see off rival interest from Liverpool and Leeds United.

Links to the 27-year-old have been growing substantially over the past few weeks and the report by CNN yesterday evening has got Villa fans believing that this could be a real possibility.

Otavio fits the bill of exactly the type of player Steven Gerrard is after in this window.

He has experience playing at the highest level both in Europe and internationally and his versatility means he can take up a number of positions across the midfield.

With Villa’s strength out wide, Otavio would likely come in as a central midfield option and having a trio of him, Boubacar Kamara and Jacob Ramsey is enough to get even the most pessimistic of supporter buzzing.

The 27-year-old made 49 appearances in all competitions last season for the Liga Portugal champions, scoring five times and providing 14 assists.

Villa go for Joe

The Joe Gomez links are back in full force but where there’s smoke, there’s fire and all that.

Villa’s interest in Gomez stretches back to Gerrard’s first transfer window at the club in January. With the defender out of favour at Liverpool, the claret and blue are able to offer him a much greater chance of first team football.

According to the Daily Star [via the Express] the Villans have revived their intentions to bring the England international to Villa Park and are now ‘pressing ahead’ with a move.

It claims that the West Midlands outfit are preparing a bid in the region of £30million for the centre-back though it’s yet to be seen whether Jurgen Klopp and the Reds deem that as sufficient.

With Liverpool not going all out this summer in terms of quantity of new faces, Klopp is said to be keen to keep as many players around as possible.

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