Premier League side Aston Villa are closing in on a deal to sign Bayer Leverkusen winger Moussa Diaby this summer, according to reports.
The Villans had an impressive second half of the season after appointing Unai Emery at the end of October following the sacking of Steven Gerrard.
Emery led the club to seventh in the Premier League and secure a place in the UEFA Europa Conference League next term with Aston Villa losing only two of their final 15 Premier League matches.
The club have wasted no time in giving Emery the tools he needs for a push again next season with Pau Torres joining for €33m from Villarreal and the highly-rated Youri Tielemans joining on a free transfer from Leicester City.
And now Aston Villa are looking to bring in Diaby from Bayer Leverkusen after the France international had another good season at the German club with 12 goals and nine assists in 41 matches in all competitions.
There was news of a second bid of €50m for Diaby yesterday but now Spanish newspaper Nacional claim that Aston Villa have ‘reached’ a €60m deal to sign Diaby from the Bundesliga outfit and are now ‘very close to finalising’ the transfer.
And now ‘everything points’ to Diaby turning up at Villa Park despite reported interest from Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain.
It is claimed Aston Villa will pay an initial €35m for Diaby with another €25m in add-ons, which are dependent on his performances for the Premier League side.
The Villans now just need to ‘clarify the last details’ before being able to ‘close the deal’ and it is expected that Diaby ‘will be officially confirmed throughout this week’.
It seems unlikely that a Spanish publication would have information of an agreed fee before English, German or French sources and Fabrizio Romano issued an update on his understanding of the state of play yesterday.
Romano told GiveMeSport: “The priority remains Moussa Diaby.
“Their opening proposal was €35m plus add-ons, not €45m, €35m plus add-ons. And the answer from Bayer Leverkusen was no.
“They want way more than that, but they’re also aware of the desire of the player to make his move to the Premier League and join Unai Emery.”
Aston Villa right-back Matty Cash has revealed how he’s excited to continue working with Emery this season after the successes of last term.
Cash told Birmingham Live: “A lot has changed, to be honest, no disrespect to other managers because everyone has their own identity, but the manager has come in and has been really good,” the right-back reflects.
“He has set it out straight how he wants us to play, what targets he wants us to achieve and the main target last year was to get into Europe which we ended up doing so that was good, but as a coach he’s on another level.
“He has brought in great staff which helped it all massively, for example we have set-piece coaches, obviously Austin [MacPhee], he worked here already, we have full-back coaches that do loads of work with the full-backs, we have striker coaches too. It’s all another level.
“I’ve never had stuff like that before so to be working with the two coaches that do the full-backs and the defensive side, in a short space of time the improvement we have seen has been really good. It’s all about little details and hopefully that can continue and keep progressing. That’s what he does with players, he makes them better.”
