Villa make £2.5m move for Premier League winning right-back

Tony Xia took to Twitter earlier this morning to announce that he’d done his job and signed another player for Aston Villa and whilst there’s still rumours floating around that this mystery man could be anyone from Deandre Yedlin to Mario Balotelli, it’s looking likely that it’s Ritchie De Laet.

De Laet is a right-back, which is Villa’s least exciting position right now and needs an upgrade. Ritchie would be an upgrade over Alan Hutton and probably offers a bit more defensive fortitude than one Micah Richards whilst forsaking the attacking qualities that Leandro Bacuna offers.

De Laet isn’t amazing, he’s bang-average. That being said, he’s managed to somehow win the Premier League and Championship titles as well as a separate promotion in the space of a few years and Villa need that mentality in the side. Is he a bad signing? Not at all, but don’t expect the world from him.

This signing is of importance because it frees up Leandro Bacuna to move up the wing or into a central position, meaning for once - Villa have options.

We are still awaiting official confirmation of this and will bring it to you as soon as we hear it.

EDIT: It’s happened!