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In Aston Villa’s final Premier League season so this decade, the club spent around £66m on transfers and brought in just under £65m in transfers with the sales of Christian Benteke, Fabian Delph, Andreas Weimann and Matthew Lowton.
The likes of Jordan Ayew, Jordan Amavi, Jordan Veretout, Idrissa Gueye, Rudy Gestede all joined for fees above £7, Scott Sinclair and Joleon Lescott both joined for fees over £1m, and the lacklustre arrivals of José Crespo and loanee Tiago Ilori rounded up a summer of subsidised spending for Aston Villa. Micah Richards also joined on a free.
Below, we’re going to accumulate how much money Aston Villa actually lost with their poor recruitment that doomed them to the Championship for (a bare minimum of) three seasons.
The Money Aston Villa Lost
*The fees have been changed from euros – so fees in £’s are give or take figures due to inflation.
Firstly, let’s start with the most expensive signing of that summer, in Jordan Ayew. The Ghanaian striker joined from Ligue 1’s FC Lorient for a fee of around £10.5m and performed relatively well in a struggling Aston Villa side.
Just a season later, he joined Swansea for a fee of around £5.2m and Welsh international Neil Taylor. Who has a current market value, according to Internet player database transfermarkt.com, of £5m.
That means as it stands, Villa have only lost a year of former Director of Football Steve Round’s wages in £300,000. This of course would all change if Taylor was to be sold for less than £5m.
Current: £300,000 loss.
The second most expensive transfer Tim Sherwood made was French youth international Jordan Amavi – for around £9.7m, who was sidelined for much of the season after a horror injury whilst on International duty.
In the 17/18 season, Marseille loaned the youngster back to Ligue 1 for a loan fee reported to be around £1.7m. The deal was made permanent for a fee of around £8.8m this summer after the player had reached a certain amount of appearances for Marseille. This means that Villa made around £800,000 from the transfer of Jordan Amavi – not bad for a player that spent the vast majority of his debut season injured.
Current: £500,000 profit.
Barcelona “wonderkid” as he was referred to at the time, Adama Traore, signed for the club for around £8.8m. He was another player that found themselves leaving just a season later.
The Spanish winger joined Middlesborough after just twelve first team appearances, for a fee believed to be around £7.2m. That’s a loss of around £1.6m.
Granted, there’s rumours that Aston Villa have a sell on fee, meaning that they will receive more money and reduce or nullify their loss, but at this current time, they have lost money on Traore.
Current: £1,100,000 loss.
Jordan Veretout joined from Ligue 1 too – with the FC Nantes player signing for a fee of around £8.8m.
Veretout played a large number of games in the relegation season, but found himself leaving on loan, returning to the Ligue 1 the season after with Saint-Etienne.
In the 17/18 season, Veretout joined Italian outfit for a fee believed to be £6.1m. That’s a pretty heft loss of £2.7m.
Current: £2,800,000 loss.
Senegal’s World Cup star Idrissa Gueye was the shining star in a failing Aston Villa squad, which is exactly why Premier League outfit Everton snapped him up the season after.
He was signed for just under £8m, and Everton signed him for £500,000 less. That’s, evidently, a £500,000 loss.
Current: £3,300,000 loss.
Rudy Gestede signed for a huge £7.5m – a whopping 3160% increase on what Blackburn payed for him a few seasons before. Great business for the Rovers.
He signed for Middlesborough the season after we were relegated, for £6.2m, meaning Villa lost £1.3m in that transfer.
Current: £4,600,000 loss.
Aston Villa actually made money from the purchase of Scott Sinclair – who joined after a season long loan from Manchester City for a fee of around £3m.
Once again though, the next season saw Sinclair leave the club. He joined multiple SPL winners Celtic for a £600,000 profit at a fee of around £3.6m.
Current: £4,000,000 loss.
Tweeting-from-pocket defender Joleon Lescott joined from Midlands rivals West Brom for a fee of around £1.2m.
The next season the centre-back left the club for free, joining AEK Athens.
That’s a £1.2m loss then.
Current: £5,200,000 loss.
Defender Jose Crespo’s transfer was nothing short of disastrous. He signed for £700,000 and appeared twice for the club before leaving on loan in the January transfer window of the same season.
Like all of the above – he left a season later.
Crespo joined Greek outfit PAOK for free, creating a loss of £700,000.
Current: £5,900,000 loss.
So, there you have it – Villa lost around SIX million pounds on the transfers they signed the season they were relegated. Whilst it’s a lot of money – and even more now Villa are rumoured to be boracic – in the grand scheme of things in the football world, it’s not that much – but that would have bought us a player like Lewis Grabban.
Of course, if you take into account the wages of many of the players, especially the likes of Micah Richards – who is still causing the club to lose money – the number is likely to be much larger – but the £6m loss is not as bad as many people would have thought.
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Words by Regan Foy (@FindFoy) // Follow us on Twitter (@claretandview)
