Aston Villa could agree late deals to sign Chelsea stars Joao Felix and Axel Disasi after selling Jhon Duran to Saudi Pro League side Al-Nassr.
That is the view of finance expert Stefan Borson, who exclusively told Football Insider one of the duo would have to make the permanent switch to Villa Park as the Premier League rules prevent clubs from having more than one player on loan from a fellow top-flight side.
Duran, who joined Villa from Chicago Fire for £18million in January 2023, has now made the move to Al-Nassr in a deal worth more than £64million.
Unai Emery’s side are understood to have reached agreements to sign Marcus Rashford and Marco Asensio on loan from Manchester United and PSG, while talks have also been held about signing Felix from Chelsea.
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AS Monaco are in something of a crisis heading into Tuesday night’s Champions League clash against Aston Villa. Despite being in the respectable position of fourth in Ligue 1, Adi Hutter’s side have only won one of their last eight matches in all competitions and that victory came against lower league side Union Saint-Jean in the French Cup. Excluding that routine 4-1 win, Monaco have only claimed victory in one of their last 10. Powered by Their young side hasn’t fully recovered from their last defeat to Benfica at home matchweek five of the Champions League league phase. They were winning 2-1 until goals from Arthur Cabral and then Zeki Amdouni turned the game around in the final stages. READ | Why Ollie Watkins ‘got a bit frustrated’ as striker closes in on Aston Villa history READ | Aston Villa’s dream transfer window as five sign and seven leave in January Then, following a defeat at Marseille and a win over Toulouse in the league, Monaco lost 3-0 at Arsenal in matchweek six. It leaves them 16th in the league phase table, but only three points behind Villa in fifth place. After that loss at the Emirates Stadium, Monaco played out a 0-0 draw with Reims before they suffered defeats to Paris Saint-Germain in the league and cup either side of beating Union Saint-Jean. Failure to beat Nantes and then being knocked out of the French Cup via penalties against Reims meant Monaco’s trip to Montpellier was a ‘must win’ to get them back on track. “I think this is the right match to motivate the whole team just before the Champions League,” Mohamed Salisu said before the game. “It is a very important match to get an energy boost and regain confidence in order to best prepare for the match against Aston Villa. We believe in ourselves and we want to take the three points. “We have no doubts, football is about ups and downs depending on the period. We are currently in a bad moment and we have to fight to get back to the top. The season had started very well and we were in good form, we just need to believe in what we are doing on the pitch and listen to the coach’s tactical advice to get back to our level.” But Monaco fell to a shock 2-1 defeat against Jean-Louis Gasset’s Montepellier and Hutter claimed the important match with Villa wasn’t in the minds of his players. Powered by “Today, it’s more than a big disappointment, it’s a real gut punch for us and everyone at the club,” Hutter said after full-time. “At the start of the season, the wins were stacking up, everyone was happy. I have been in professional football for 35 years as a player before and as a coach now. It is not the first time this has happened to me and the main thing I have learned is to stay positive, work on the details and help the team.” Asked if he thought that the Champions League match against Villa could have affected the team’s mentality, Hutter responded: “I don’t think so, I have the feeling that the team was completely focused on this match. You could see that in the first half, we wanted to make the difference quickly but we missed too many chances. In the second half, we wanted to score the second goal but we made an individual error. We then had no right to concede another goal. “We tried to come back after with several chances in the last minutes but it was too little. I have a lot of respect for Montpellier but we needed to impose ourselves to regain confidence. Tuesday will be a completely different match, it’s the Champions League at home, but I don’t think the team already had Aston Villa in mind.” What is your Monaco vs Villa score prediction? Tell us here READ NEXT: Louie Barry makes transfer decision as Aston Villa told he’s ‘ready’ to accept deal Aston Villa transfer news with latest on Garcia and Bade as trio could leave I visited huge new Midland charity shop and wished the previous store never shut down Marks & Spencer has £29.50 ‘best alternative’ to Levi’s that’s £80 cheaper Aston Villa favourite could join Premier League rivals Man City ‘on loan’ Story Saved You can find this story in My Bookmarks.Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right.
January 20, 2025
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Football Insider revealed on 26 January Villa are exploring a loan move for his Stamford Bridge teammate Disasi as they look to add to their defensive options.
Aston Villa receive PSR boost after Jhon Duran sale
Borson revealed the sale of Duran will provide a boost to the club’s profit and sustainability (PSR) position as they are believed to be close to the limit again.
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He told Football Insider: “I suspect the Duran deal will fix the PSR problem and also allow them some capacity to potentially do a deal, so I think that’s one to watch.
“There is certainly talk that they might go and try and buy Felix from Chelsea. Ideally, they would loan both Felix and Disasi from Chelsea, but the interesting thing there is that you can’t have two loans from the same club.
“I doubt they want to buy Disasi, which means if they want Felix, they are going to have to pay for him permanently.
“Then you go back to assessing the PSR impact of a signing in January versus in the summer. You divide it by five years in terms of the headline price, then times it by five twelfths of that for the amortisation cost, and then add on five twelfths of an annual wage.
“That means even these very big deals are quite manageable in the second half of the season, even if you are tight with PSR.
Chelsea
(Credit: Imago)
“I think Villa will be able to do a deal if they wanted after selling Duran, but it doesn’t mean that they didn’t have a PSR problem in the first place.
“I just can’t see that, logically, you would sell Duran now if you didn’t need to.”
In other news, Aston Villa work on two defender deals after Tyrone Mings update.
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