Aston Villa have reportedly hit a stumbling block in our pursuit of Sevilla defender Loic Bade, and subsequently could be forced to look elsewhere.
The 24-year-old has emerged as a priority target over the past week, and particularly after Diego Carlos’ move to Fenerbahce was made official on Thursday, Unai Emery will want another centre-half to arrive this month.
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Amid that intense speculation that it could be Bade, Fabrizio Romano has now reported that talks are not advancing at this stage as despite Villa’s offer of €23m plus €3m in add-ons, we’ve neither reached an agreement with Sevilla, nor with Bade on personal terms.
With the touted swoop looking highly doubtful at this stage, it remains to be seen if Villa return with an improved offer to try and convince Sevilla to green-light a transfer, but it would still hinge on whether or not Bade wants to join us and an agreement can be reached with him, and if the answer to that question is no, Villa would be better off quickly switching their focus elsewhere.
There’s no doubt that the French centre-half is a talented player with a bright future ahead of him, and he has the characteristics and attributes that would arguably make him a big success in the Premier League given his physicality, athleticism and composure in possession.
Combined with the void that has now been left by Carlos, coupled with our lack of strength in depth and competition in the heart of the defence beyond Tyrone Mings and Ezri Konsa, it’s a problematic area of Emery’s squad right now, and so as noted above, whether it’s Bade or an alternative target, Villa will have to move soon to ensure we address that issue before the end of the January transfer window.
The expectation was that having approved Carlos’ exit, we would have a replacement lined up to come in immediately. That doesn’t appear to be the case, and so although that was the sensible and right move to offload the Brazilian defender as we had to upgrade and improve in that department, time will tell if a breakthrough comes to sign Bade, or if we find a solution elsewhere.
