Aston Villa have not been shy when it comes to diving into the transfer market and spending money on new players since they came up from the Championship at the end of the 2018/19 season.
One player that Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris spent a significant amount of money on that has now turned out to have been a rather bad decision for them is Wesley.
Signed during the 2019 summer transfer window from Club Brugge in a deal worth £22m, the striker only scored five goals in 21 league appearances in the 2019/20 campaign.
Unfortunately for the player, he sustained a cruciate ligament rupture in January that kept him out of action for a full year, which then followed a knee injury that pushed his recovery back even further.
In addition to having a lower average of shots per game (1.7) than the likes of Jack Grealish (2) and John McGinn (2), the striker also lost 92 aerial duels compared to the 58 he won, leaving him with a win percentage of 38.7%, which was lower than 12 outfield Villa players.
Since the summer of 2021, the 25-year-old has been on loan with clubs such as Brugge, Internacional and Levante, where he currently is.
Having previously been described as a “burden” for Villa by Paul Robinson, Wesley now has six goals in 26 appearances for the club, meaning that he has cost Edens and Sawiris just over £3.6m per goal.
Bearing in mind how the Brazilian’s contract at Villa Park is set to expire in the summer, and he hasn’t been able to find the back of the net on even one occasion in five league games for Levante in Spain’s second division, it should be in Steven Gerrard’s plans to get rid of the striker on a permanent basis in the summer.
