Aston Villa midfielder Youri Tielemans has reportedly rejected interest from Al Ittihad, as he is said to be happy at the club and isn’t considering a move elsewhere.
The 28-year-old made a slow start to life at Villa after arriving on a free transfer in 2023, but after showing improvement in his debut season with us, he firmly established himself as a fundamental player for Unai Emery in a superb campaign last year and was deservedly rewarded with subsequent awards and recognition.
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As our midfield metronome in the deeper pivot, the Belgian international plays a critical role for us and is one of the pillars of the current starting line-up, and so the possibility of losing him this summer has raised real concern.
However, according to Sacha Tavolieri, Tielemans has rejected the idea of moving to Al Ittihad, who were said to be keen to prise him away from us this summer, as he’s happy with us and wants to stay in the Premier League.
It’s certainly hoped that proves to be an accurate assessment of the situation, not only this week but also beyond that, and he remains with us as we’d undoubtedly be significantly weaker if we lost him, particularly with no real replacement ready to step up and fill that void.
Further, it’s been a turbulent summer for Villa as the club’s hierarchy has had to juggle being compliant with the various financial regulations while trying to build and improve the squad to become more competitive, and there are concerns after a slow start to the season that we’ve weakened the group and aren’t equipped to compete at the top level as things stand.
In contrast, we’ve been able to keep a number of pivotal individuals at the club thus far, Tielemans being one of them, and if we can ensure that remains the case beyond this week, that will be seen as an important boost as we’ll continue that consistency and familiarity within the squad, while also perhaps still being in a position to add reinforcements where possible.
It will no doubt be a major boost for Emery to continue to have Tielemans to rely upon moving forward, and it sounds as though that will be the case if the Belgian midfielder has indeed rebuffed interest from Saudi Arabia to continue his journey with us.
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