Aston Villa have confirmed the signing of Axel Disasi from Chelsea in a loan deal until the end of the season.
The 26-year-old joined Chelsea from Monaco in 2023 after established himself as a key figure for the Ligue 1 outfit, while he has since gone on to make 61 appearances for the Blues and has earned five caps for France.
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He now begins a new chapter in his career, albeit on a temporary basis, with Villa confirming that we have secured his signing on loan, while the Athletic’s Jacob Tanswell reports that it’s a straight loan move worth £5m with no option to buy included, as we were eventually able to land our preferred target.
It’s a critical late addition from Villa, as we were short at centre-half following the departure of Diego Carlos last month, while both Tyrone Mings and Pau Torres are currently sidelined by injury.
While the left-sided pair will hopefully return in the coming weeks, we were undoubtedly in need of a reinforcement in that department, and after significant speculation suggesting that Villa were prioritising Disasi and the Frenchman wanted us, a deal was eventually done to make it a reality.
Unfortunately, the expectation is that Disasi won’t be able to feature in two of our next three games though, as he’s cup-tied for the FA Cup and it’s likely that he won’t be able to face his parent club in our Premier League meeting on February 22.
In turn, that’s a blow as it will mean that Boubacar Kamara will have to continue to deputise as a centre-half alongside Ezri Konsa, unless Mings is closing in on a return with Torres probably behind him in his recovery, but it was important that Villa made a move, and we finally managed to get this particular deal over the line having announced it after the transfer deadline having submitted a deal sheet.
It’s certainly been a productive and positive transfer window for Villa though, with Disasi, Andres Garcia, Marco Asensio, Marcus Rashford and Donyell Malen arriving, and having offloaded players to balance our books, we’ve hopefully left ourselves in a stronger position both from a sporting and financial perspective.