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Aston Villa January Transfer Window Round Up
Aston Villa have signed a total of 7 players, in their attempt to remain a Premier League football club. Further to the previous three already signed, Gaston Ramirez, Javier Hernandez and Martin Demichelis, they moved to sign 4 more on deadline day.
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Danny Batth
First up, there is a player that Villa have been linked with for a long time in the window. Danny Batth signs from local rivals Wolves for a fee of 4.2 million pounds. He will be a great asset to the team, at the young age of 24, he still has some improving to do, and improves our back-line greatly. We know have fantastic options in the centre back positions, with new signings Batth and Demichelis joining Ciaran Clark, Nathan Baker, Jores Okore and Sergi Gomez.
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Leon Goretzka
Secondly we have Leon Goretzka. Signing from a Schalke for a reported £5 million fee, I feel is a great capture for the club. Having an international cap under his belt already, this could prove to be a very important transfer for the club. He is a centre-midfielder, with great technical and passing abilities. He will hopefully provide those key passes that we have been missing over the season. He joins a midfield than contains Westwood, Delph, Anita and Romeu already. Another player that provides us with very decent depth in our squad.
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Aleksandar Ignjovski
The Serbian international joins Aston Villa from Werder Bremen for a small 1.4million pound fee. He will provide great cover for our other holding midfielder Romeu, and means that when Romeu moves back to Chelsea in the summer we will not be panicking. He has fantastic defensive stats, and can hopefully be the 'hard man' that we seemed to have lacked this season. He's small, pacey, and not afraid to get stuck into a tackle. Lets hope he can provide some fantastic performances for the remainder of the future.
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Riechedly Bazoer
This player is a real coup for Aston Villa. A player who seemed to have a very bright future at Dutch giants, Ajax joins Aston Villa for a fee of 800k. The 18 year old is a fantastic youth prospect for villa, as all other youth prospects seemed to have been sold. At the young age of 18, he already has fantastic defensive abilities, and can play from Centre back, right upto Centre Midfield. He will be a fantastic player for us in seasons to come, and can hopefully learn off the evergreen Martin Demichelis.
With these players coming into Aston Villa, it means their total spending in this month was set to just under £28,000,000. A big month for the team bottom of the Premier League.
There were also some outgoings to report as two players left the team, both moving onto Burnley.
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Gabriel Agbonlahor and Joe Cole
These two players leave Aston Villa for a combined fee of 1.25 million pounds. It was very sad to see Gabby leave Aston Villa, for me he is not cut out for this level, so i was pleased to get a seven figure sum for him. Joe Cole was always a back up to us, but with younger-better players coming in, his place at the squad was no longer solid. Good luck to them both at their new club. In another note, Van Ginkel was recalled by the Chelsea chairman.
So, after January Aston Villa's current squad looks as follows:
GK - Brad Guzan, Shay Given, Benjamin Siegrist
DR - Matt Lowton, Alan Hutton
DC - Martin Demichelis, Jores Okore, Ciaran Clark, Nathan Baker, Danny Batth, Sergi Gomez, Bazoer (U18)
DL -Antonio Luna, Kieran Richardson
DMC - Oriol Romeu (Loan), Aleksandar Ignjovski
MC - Vurnon Anita, Fabian Delph, Karim El Ahmadi, Ashley Westwood, Leon Goretzka
AML - Christian Atsu, Sadio Mane
AMC - Gaston Ramirez, Juan Fernando Quintero
AMR - Andi Weimann, Nathan Dyer
ST - Libor Kozak, Javier Hernandez, Alex Lacazette, Darren Bent
As it can be seen, we now have great strength throughout our team, and on paper, enough to get us out of trouble, and up the table next season. As Chairman, I am very pleased with this squad. If we stay up you can guarantee it will be streamlined, but as for now, i'm very happy with our January dealings.