The days following the closure of a transfer window are often full of stories about moves which didn’t happen. Whilst some of those will be genuine transfer collapses, it’s also an opportunity for clubs to push out stories to try and hype the value of a player and for agents to do similar with regards to their clients.
That may – or may not – be the case with what is brought by Tuesday’s edition of Portuguese newspaper [Record](http://record.pt) and claims about Aston Villa and Diogo Costa.
Before we start, it’s worth nothing that on Monday, O Jogo, another Portuguese newspaper, stated that despite rumours of interest from Aston Villa, FC Porto had received [no recent contact from anyone for Costa](https://sportwitness.co.uk/no-contact-for-diogo-player-thought-to-be-safe-from-aston-villa/) and he was ‘safe’ at the club, protected by a €75m clause.
Links with Aston Villa were due to uncertainty around Emiliano Martínez, and a potential move to Manchester United.
Record report that amidst that whirlwind, which quite clearly caused Unai Emery an unnerving amount of stress, Aston Villa _did_ turn their attention towards Diogo Costa.
So there’s no danger of misrepresenting Record, this is exactly what the Portuguese newspaper claim: _‘Diogo Costa rejected a move to Aston Villa in the final days of the now-closed transfer window. According to information gathered by Record, and following the rumoured possibility of Emiliano Martínez joining Manchester United, which did not materialise, Villa expressed their willingness to reach €50m.’_
Record is a very well connected newspaper and their information won’t be plucked from thin air, but we’d suggest it would have been odd for Aston Villa not to go in at, _say_, €40m, at least at first.
Galatasaray offered €20m in recent weeks, which was a ridiculously low bid. However, despite the absurdity of the Turkish effort, it saw a devaluation of Diogo Costa’s value in the general consciousness.
The player’s camp, and/or FC Porto, may be trying to rebalance that, and using Aston Villa to do so. The goalkeeper is represented by Jorge Mendes’ Gestifute agency, who know exactly how to work things like this.