Aston Villa must avoid flushing millions down drain on Clement Lenglet after Fabrizio Romano transfer exit update

Aston Villa loanee Clement Lenglet has been resigned to a bit-part role since

his summer move and there’s now a real danger of the club flushing millions down the drain at Villa Park.

Unai Emery’s defence has been solid this season, with almost half of the 21 goals conceded in the Premier League coming

across two defeats to Newcastle and Liverpool earlier in the campaign.

And a huge portion of that can be attributed to the alliance that Pau Torres,

Diego Carlos, and Ezri Konsa built at the core of the defense [Sky Sports, July 12].

Lenglet has mostly been on the sidelines as a result of this relationship.

In order to rejoin Emery, Torres joined with Villarreal in the summer. The new

player took over right away when Tyrone Mings had an ACL injury that

sidelined him for the long run, and he hasn’t looked back since.

 

Lenglet has yet to play a minute in the Premier League for Villa despite making

26 appearances in the top flight while on loan at Tottenham last season. Torres’

early impression has made the decision to bring Lenglet in from Barcelona on a

deadline-day loan deal look like an expensive mistake.

 

Hugo Lloris of Spurs earns £100k a week, making him the most expensive bench

warmer in the league, according to The Sun on November 16.

The sum of Lenglet’s involvement so far five appearances in the Europa Conference League, where errors at the back contributed to a surprise 3-2 defeat to Legia Warsaw on his debut which Villa News pundit Alan Hutton felt was in part down to his lack of action otherwise.

 

The centre-back is now around 13 weeks into his career at Aston Villa, meaning he has so far earned £1.95m from the club, averaging out to around £390,000 for each of his five European outings.

His contract at the Camp Nou is what it is so Lenglet isn’t necessarily to blame as the club knew what they were taking on, even if his statistics from SofaScore in his five appearances don’t scream of a player who is banging the door down for league minutes.

 

As per SofaScore, Lenglet has started all five of their European games so far this season, recording 92.8 touches per game,

completing 95 per cent of his passes, recording 0.4 key passes from centre-

back, averaging 1.2 tackles per game, 5.4 balls recovered, completing 100 per cent

of his dribbles and 64 per cent of his total duels.

 

Despite his limited minutes, it hasn’t been all doom and gloom for Lenglet but given his age, experience and profile the

Frenchman certainly won’t be totally satisfied and a fresh opportunity to seek

pastures new in the winter may well have arisen already.

 

According to SportBild German journalist Christian Falk, taking to his

personal Twitter account (6 December), German champions Bayern Munich are

interested in the Barcelona loanee in January.

On December 15, Fabrizio Romano also revealed that Lenglet might depart in January as AC Milan, the dominant team in Italy, had entered the contest and informed Lenglet’s parent club of their intention to recruit him.

Lenglet is battling for Premier League playing time, and since Aston Villa won’t

be playing in the Europa Conference League until March, they may end up

wasting millions on the French benchwarmer, whose salary would be

almost £1.5 million if he doesn’t play until then.

 

You have to pay attention when teams like AC Milan and Bayern Munich approach, and Lenglet may decide to

hang up his boots in January in search of better opportunities.

Although Aston Villa could be inclined to retain him, Emery and football president Monchi must resist the temptation considering the potential financial loss.