Following their return to the Premier League in 2019, Aston Villa have been quite clever in the transfer market and signed some pretty incredible players. All things considered, they’ve had a pretty impressive track record with their recruitment in recent years, but it hasn’t always been that way.
Far from it, in fact, and the Villans have actually made some pretty wild mistakes in the past, signing some real duds. We’ve decided to narrow things down and look at the 10 worst signings in the club’s history.
After a couple of fantastic seasons for Blackburn Rovers, Villa snapped Rudy Gestede up in 2015 for around £6m, but he failed to even come close to replicating that form with the Midlands side. Instead, he struggled his way through two campaigns leading the front line for the team and scored just nine league goals in 50 appearances.
Gestede is nowhere near as bad as some of the other names on this list, but due to the expectations that surrounded the move and the way in which he failed to deliver, he’s still one of the 10 worst signings in Villa history.
Just one year after Habib Beye was named Newcastle United’s Player of the Year, he joined Aston Villa, and it couldn’t have really gone much worse. He was a shell of the star he was at St James’ Park and wound up disappointing massively. The full-back got off to a pretty torrid start and was sent off in just his third game with the club.
From there, he quickly fell out of favour with the team and made just nine league appearances across three seasons. In 2012, after a loan spell at Doncaster Rovers, he joined the Yorkshire club on a permanent deal but retired a year later.
On the advice of club icon Stiliyan Petrov, Villa signed Aleksander Tonev in the summer of 2013, but it’s safe to say the move didn’t go too well. His nationality was about all he had in common with Petrov, and the midfielder struggled to settle in at the club. He made just 17 league appearances in his first season before he was shipped off to Celtic on loan.
His spell in Scotland somehow went even worse, as he received a seven-match suspension in his first game for the club for racist language. He played just six times for Celtic and was then sold to Frosinone in Italy shortly after.
After scoring goals in his first two preseason games for Villa, it looked like Nicklas Helenius was going to be a major hit for the club when he joined in 2013. That didn’t quite happen, though; he only scored one more goal for the team. Aside from an effort in the FA Cup, his time in the Midlands was pretty shambolic, and he played just three times in the Premier League.
In 2014, just a year after joining the team, he was loaned back to Aalborg BK, the side he initially joined them from, before moving back on a permanent deal shortly afterwards. Just a really uneventful spell.
Jean Makoun had shone for Lyon in Ligue 1, so his move to Villa initially seemed like a promising one. He immediately struggled, though, and couldn’t quite cut it in England. The midfielder just wasn’t the same player that had impressed in France and his time at Villa Park was a huge disappointment.
The former Cameroon international made just 11 appearances for the team across two seasons, failing to score a single goal. Having cost just over £6m, his failure to really make an impact in the Premier League labeled him a massive flop and after loan spells at Olympiacos and Stade Rennais, he joined the latter on a permanent deal.
In terms of value for money, Ross McCormack could actually be the worst signing in Villa history. After incredible spells at both Leeds United and Fulham, where he announced himself to be an absolute goal machine, the Villans splashed £13m on the striker. This was a huge fee for a Championship side at the time, but the general expectancy was that he’d fire them straight back up to the top flight.
That didn’t happen, though, and the prolific goalscoring form he’d shown for years earlier simply vanished. Instead, he scored just three goals in 20 appearances during his first season at Villa Park. He then made just two appearances over the following two years, with loan spells at numerous clubs taking up the majority of his remaining time in the Midlands. He was released by the club in 2019, before dropping all the way down to Aldershot in the National League where he’d make just two appearances. What a massive waste of money.
As a boyhood Aston Villa fan, Joleon Lescott was probably banking on a hero’s welcome and a real fairytale story as he headed towards the twilight of his career. The spell was actually more of a nightmare than anything else, though, and he had a torrid time with the club. In a year when they were eventually relegated from the top flight, Lescott got on the wrong side of the fans on numerous occasions. From pocket-tweeting pictures of sports cars to describing confirmation of Villa’s relegation as a ‘relief’, he seemed to have no awareness of the ill-feeling towards the club at that time.
He didn’t stick around for long either. After just 12 months, 30 league appearances, one goal and a relegation, he left the side, playing a combined total of six more games before he retired.
After a solid, if not spectacular, season at Dinamo Zagreb, Bosko Balaban was signed by Villa in 2001 for just under £6m with hopes that the striker would become their new leading man. He was about as far away from capable as possible, though, and failed to score a single goal for them in what was a disastrous debut campaign.
Almost immediately, it became apparent he wasn’t up to the task, and he was quickly dropped from Villa’s first team. He made just eight appearances in all competitions throughout the 2001/02 season and was sent back to Zagreb on loan when it had finished before being released from his contract in 2003.
Despite joining Aston Villa for absolutely nothing, Micah Richards still goes down as the club’s worst ever signing. He’d been a solid Premier League defender with Manchester City for years, but after falling out of the first team, he joined the Midlands side and was immediately made captain.
His first season at the club was a disaster as they were relegated from the Premier League. He made 24 league appearances over the campaign but failed to keep the side up. The next season was where things got horrendously bad, though. Injuries struck the defender, and he made just two appearances all season. He then didn’t make a single appearance in each of the next two years as he couldn’t get healthy. It was tremendously unfortunate for the player, but considering he was being paid £35,000 a week, it was a real waste of money too. He was finally released from the club in 2019 and retired immediately afterwards.
Villa fans hated Richards for costing them so much in wages as he sat on the sidelines, but it’s hardly his fault. Injuries happen, and it’s a shame they brought his career to a premature end. Still, considering how much he was paid and how little he played, he’s the worst signing in the club’s history.
Check out the table below to see the full list of the 10 worst signings in Aston Villa’s history and their stats while at the club.
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