Aston Villa have confirmed the signing of Moussa Diaby from Bayer Leverkusen, and it’s claimed he has penned a five-year contract.
Diaby, 24, enjoyed an impressive stint with the Bundesliga side since joining them in 2019, scoring 49 goals and providing 48 assists in 172 appearances.
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Prior to that, he came through the Paris Saint-Germain youth ranks, while he has represented France at senior level on nine occasions as he looks to have a big future ahead of him for club and country.
The next chapter of his club career will see him join Unai Emery’s squad, with Villa confirming in their official statement that we have completed his signing for an undisclosed fee, while he has already joined his new teammates in the USA on our pre-season tour.
While Villa haven’t released much detail on the figures or contract, Fabrizio Romano has reported that Diaby has put pen to paper on a five-year contract to keep him with us until 2028, and so that is finally good news that we’ve managed to wrap up the transfer and bring him in to bolster our attacking options.
With his pace, directness, technical ability and influence in the final third with his track record of goal involvements, it’s an exciting addition to the Villa squad that will hopefully make our attack more potent moving forward.
Given we’re looking to compete on multiple fronts this season and beyond to try and build on our progress under Emery last season, it was always crucial that we drafted in reinforcements this summer to significantly improve the Spanish tactician’s squad.
Having already confirmed the arrivals of Youri Tielemans and Pau Torres, this is another major signing that adds real quality to the group, and it will be fascinating to see how Diaby has a positive influence on the team moving forward.
It’s unclear at this stage if he’ll be eligible to feature in the Premier League Summer Series given he wasn’t included in our original squad, but perhaps given it’s merely a pre-season tournament, any normal rules would be relaxed to allow for it to happen.
If not, it’s still crucial he’s already joined up with his new teammates, as it will give him an opportunity to acclimatise and build chemistry and understanding with those he’ll now be playing alongside to hopefully hit the ground running when the new campaign gets underway.
