Aston Villa are reportedly interested in signing Girona midfielder Aleix Garcia this summer, but face potentially significant competition for his signature.
The 26-year-old joined Manchester City in 2015, but after various spells at other clubs, he joined Girona on a permanent basis three years ago – following a previous loan stint – and has since gone on to make 168 appearances in total for the Spanish outfit.
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In those outings, he’s contributed eight goals and 21 assists to go with his overall influence, as he’s played a key role in helping them secure Champions League football for next season.
However, speculation is rife over his future, with AS reporting that there is significant interest from around Europe in the Spanish international, with Villa explicitly named as one of the clubs potentially looking to swoop for him this summer.
Should that prove to be accurate, we’ll have to possibly fend off the likes of Bayer Leverkusen, Barcelona, AC Milan and Bournemouth to land his signature, but that collection of clubs arguably says a lot about how impressive Garcia has been over the past year or two.
Based on the report above, it’s Leverkusen who are perhaps in pole position currently as talks are underway, while it’s added that Garcia is likely to cost between €15m-€20m, as per his release clause.
From a Villa perspective, it’s a touted signing that does make sense for us given our problems in midfield this season, as injuries and suspensions have exposed our lack of depth and quality competition in that area of Unai Emery’s squad.
With Boubacar Kamara suffering a serious injury, the defensive midfield role in particular is one position that must be strengthened this summer, but given Emery’s preference to play one of Youri Tielemans or John McGinn in a more advanced role behind Ollie Watkins, we seemingly do need to add more quality in midfield as a whole with too much put on that pair and Douglas Luiz.
Garcia ticks a lot of the right boxes in that regard given his technical ability, composure and presence, and if it is ultimately the Spaniard who Emery chooses to improve his group with, that will be because the Villa boss sees him as an ideal fit for our style of play and structure.
In turn, time will tell if it’s Garcia who emerges as a priority target for Villa this summer, but with the hope that we’ll be playing Champions League football next season, reinforcements will be needed to help us compete on multiple fronts and at a higher level.