Aston Villa's former £42m midfield machine could make stunning Premier League return via intriguing swap deal

Aston Villa won 1-0 away at Brentford in their last Premier League outing. Attacker Ollie Watkins scored the winner for his former club at the Gtech Community Stadium.

Unai Emery’s side are sat in 8th place in the table as they look to get into the top four again. They are four points off Chelsea in 4th with nine fixtures left to play this season.

Villa are back in action this weekend with an FA Cup quarter-final tie against Preston North End. A place at Wembley awaits the winner in the semi-final.

Newcastle United swap deal tipped for former Aston Villa man Douglas Luiz

According to Calciomercato, Douglas Luiz could move to Newcastle United this summer in a move that sees Sandro Tonali head to Juventus. He moved to Serie A last year for a fee of £42million but is already being linked with a return to England.

Luiz, 26, moved to Villa Park in 2019 as a 21-year-old. After signing him, former manager Dean Smith said “Douglas is an extremely talented young player with an outstanding pedigree who I am sure will fit nicely into our style and system of play.”

The Brazil international, who has 19 caps to his name, went on to become a key player for the Midlands outfit and played 204 games in all competitions, scoring 22 goals, 10 of which came in the last campaign. His form alerted the attention of Juventus and they came calling prior to this term.

However, he hasn’t been able to make the impact he would have wanted to in Turin. He has played 22 matches, 15 of which have come in the league, but he hasn’t scored.

A move to Newcastle could be a nice change of scene for Luiz and present him with an opportunity to get some regular game time again. The Toon Army are also eyeing European football right now under Eddie Howe.

Aston Villa boss Unai Emery’s comments after latest Premier League win

Emery was a proud man following Aston Villa’s last league game as they picked up an important three points. They had to dig deep against Brentford as they secured the victory.

The Spaniard said: “I’m very proud of the players. We planned this match as a key [game] because we’re not going to play in the Premier League for the next 25 days.

“We’re going to play in the Champions League and then it’s the break. We’re coming back with the FA Cup and then Brighton is our next match in the Premier League to try to feel comfortable, confident and believing in our way.

“It was very important to compete today like we did in Bruges and try to get those three points, knowing the difficulties we were facing. We did a fantastic job in the first half. We dominated, created chances and played wishing to win. We didn’t concede a lot to them and in the second half we scored one goal and then a second goal, but VAR refused it.”