Aston Villa have reportedly made contact with Chelsea over a possible move for forward Christopher Nkunku ahead of the transfer deadline.
The 27-year-old joined Chelsea from RB Leipzig in 2023 and has gone on to make 62 appearances for the club, scoring 18 goals and providing five assists in those outings.
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Injuries have been an issue for the French international during that time, hence the limited involvement over the past two years, but it appears as though he’s considered as a possible solution by the Villa hierarchy.
According to Fabrizio Romano, Villa have made contact with Chelsea over signing Nkunku, although it’s not noted whether it would be a loan or permanent swoop, while it is added that Nicolas Jackson and Marco Asensio are both still on our shortlist ahead of the upcoming deadline.
Having failed to score in our opening two Premier League games of the season and struggled to really pose a genuine threat in front of goal, Unai Emery will likely make it a priority to add more firepower to his squad in the coming week as we look short of creativity, pace, width and a cutting edge in the final third.
It’s questionable as to whether or not Nkunku ticks all those boxes, but perhaps Villa are in the market for more than one signing, and so it will be fascinating to see how things develop in the coming days as we absolutely need to do something in the transfer window to strengthen the squad where possible.
A likely stumbling block will be the terms of an agreement with our Premier League rivals as Villa also need to continue to be mindful of our limitations on wages as we aim to comply with our settlement agreement with UEFA, and so perhaps there is a lengthy list of possible targets to improve the group.
It has to be said that it’s been a concerning start to the campaign for Villa, as although we’ve shown defensive resilience, we’ve been nowhere near good enough going forward and that has to be fixed.
Having offloaded Jacob Ramsey and Leon Bailey this month, we’ve seemingly given ourselves the room and financial flexibility to try to upgrade, and it’s imperative that we follow through with that over the course of the coming week to ensure that we’ve got enough quality and competition to be a genuine contender across multiple fronts.
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