Aston Villa manager Unai Emery believes he can resurrect the career of a player struggling to fulfil his enormous potential with a move this summer.
Unai Emery is planning for a new season in which he will manage Aston Villa in the Champions League after a remarkable 2023/24 campaign.
The Spanish coach has the task of assembling a squad ready to compete on all fronts, with Villa able to attract a higher calibre of talent thanks to last season’s heroics.
Now that the necessary sales have been made for the Villans to avoid breaching Premier League spending rules, all eyes are on incomings at Villa Park.
That has seen Villa linked with a surprise move for Atletico Madrid attacker Joao Felix, with Emery believing he can help get the 24-year-old back to his best.
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Unai Emery wants Aston Villa to take chance on Joao Felix
Felix looked a player set to be Cristiano Ronaldo’s successor as Portugal’s next superstar when he broke through as a teenager at Benfica but, following his £113 million move to Atletico in 2019, it has not worked out that way.
Having fallen out with manager Diego Simeone, Felix has had loan spells at both Chelsea and Barcelona but has failed to reach the heights of his time in his homeland at either club.
As revealed on The Transfers Podcast on Thursday, Benfica are keen to re-sign Felix in a deal worth about £27.5 million that would see the Portuguese club own half the rights to the player, with Atletico retaining the other half.
The low fee has piqued the interest of Villa and it has now emerged that Emery feels he can get the player with obvious talent back to his best.
That is according to Spanish outlet Sport 45, who have reported: ‘Unai Emery, coach of the Villans, is convinced of being able to recover the best version of Joao Felix, something that the sporting director, Monchi, and his deputy, Damià Vidagany, would also agree on’.
The report goes on to claim Villa are ready to spend the required money to beat Benfica to Felix’s signature, as they say Villa: ‘has the economic muscle to carry out operations like this and, on the other hand, Aston Villa has done its homework regarding the salary limit’.
Is Felix worth the risk for Aston Villa?
There will be few fans amongst the Villa faithful who would doubt anything Emery does, such is the job the former PSG boss has done in his 18 months at the club.
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However, a potential move for Felix is a risky one.
In terms of flair and outright ability there are few better than Felix, but his end product is severely lacking and he has failed to develop during the five years since leaving Benfica.
Whether he can recreate the form that convinced Atletico to pay nine figures to sign him as a 19-year-old is up for debate, but perhaps most worrying is his attitude.
Felix and Simeone have clashed on numerous occasions, with Felix often accused of refusing to carry out the instructions of the Atletico coach.
There has also been rumours of a rift with Portugal coach Roberto Martinez this summer with Felix not a starter for his country at Euro 2024.
Martinez has dismissed this suggestion, stating he feels Felix is a “world-class, very important” player with “superlative quality for the inside game”, but there is often no smoke without fire.
If Emery can get Felix performing to his previous level then any deal could prove a bargain, but the worry would be this becomes an expensive mistake that is hard to get rectify in a similar way to Philippe Coutinho.
