Unai Emery has revealed that signing Joao Felix in January “was not totally impossible” as Aston Villa held discussions with the Portuguese’s agent, Jorge Mendes. Ahead of this weekend’s meeting against Chelsea and the Portuguese superstar, Emery was quick to downplay the prospect of bringing Felix to Villa Park but confirmed that tentative discussions did take place.
Unai Emery said: “We are realistic about how we can improve, how we can add players to improve our squad. Joao Felix was not totally impossible for us but he wanted to play for a team in the Champions League. He has a high salary, and he plays at Chelsea on loan. Chelsea paid a lot of money for that. He’s a very good player but we were never really in the running for him.”
Chelsea spent more than £300m alone in the January transfer window to bring in the likes of Felix, Enzo Fernandez (£105m) and Mykhaylo Mudryk (£89m). Villa, meanwhile, go into Saturday’s tea-time clash level on points with the Blues knowing a win can take them above Graham Potter’s side and into the top ten.
Given Chelsea’s spending power, Emery was asked about the level of competition in the Premier League given Villa’s ambition is to secure European football across the next couple of seasons.
Unai Emery said: “The Premier League is the best league in the world, no doubt about it. We aren’t Chelsea, we are Aston Villa. Our supporters, our owners, our players, our club, you, we are very proud of us. We want to fight against Chelsea on Saturday and we want to fight trying to be competitive at the same level but not spending the same money that they are spending. Of course, our club as well as our owners, they have ambition and want to spend money intelligently; being demanding, trying to be closer to the teams that are in the top four now, or teams like Chelsea, spending a lot of money and have a lot of very good players. It’s the resume I told you at the very beginning, we aren’t in the running to sign Joao Felix but, for us, it was very difficult. It was very difficult to sign one player like him thinking to play in the Champions League and thinking now he’s better than us. Our idea is to reduce this idea with them and to reduce the distance and to get them [kind of players] in one, two or three years. Spending money like they did? No! Trying to keep consistent and trying to get another way in our work.”
