Aston Villa has made two signings so far in the January transfer window, and it remains to be seen if any more will be made before the end of the month.
Both Alex Moreno and Jhon Duran have arrived at Villa Park, becoming Unai Emery’s first two signings, and Johan Lange has until Tuesday night to join them.
However, instead of getting caught up in the madness of deadline day, the club could wait until the summer to bolster its ranks in preparation for the next term.
According to The Athletic, Emery may look into signing Chelsea center-forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang at the end of the season.
Villa would be unable to sign the striker for the second half of the season because he has already competed for both the Blues and Barcelona, preventing him from joining another club before the 2023/24 season.
Emery, on the other hand, must avoid signing Aubameyang in the summer, as the Spaniard risks repeating the club’s mistake with Ross McCormack in 2016.
The Villans signed the Scottish attacker ahead of the 2016/17 season after he had a number of successful seasons in the Championship with Fulham and Leeds.
Prior to joining Villa, McCormack had scored 17 goals or more in four of the previous five seasons in the second tier, and he had 21 goals and ten assists in 45 appearances for Fulham in the division.
However, the above statistics show that the forward’s signing was an expensive disaster for Villa, as he struggled in front of the goal following a big-money move.
It is unclear how much Chelsea would demand in terms of a transfer fee for Aubameyang, but the Gabonese international is reportedly earning £160k per week at Stamford Bridge, implying that the striker would be an expensive signing for Emery to make, as he would become the joint-highest earner at Villa Park.
The Blues man, like McCormack in the Championship, has a history of being a prolific scorer, having scored 68 goals in 128 Premier League appearances for Arsenal.
However, the striker’s form for Chelsea this season indicates that the marksman is not the player he once was as the 33-year-old has found the back of the net once in 11 top-flight outings and three times in 17 matches in all competitions.
Former professional Frank McAvennie recently claimed that the Blues transfer dud is “on a fortune and doing nothing” and the statistics do little to disprove his claim.
The veteran has averaged a Sofascore rating of 6.55 in the Premier League, which would place him 22nd in the Villa squad, and has lost a whopping 73% of his individual duels.
His worrying statistics for the Blues suggest that Emery would risk repeating the club’s McCormack disaster as the striker could be another expensive flop at the top end of the pitch.
