Villa eye ‘bargain’ £35m swoop for Liverpool, Spurs target as Emery targets reunion with ‘Rolls Royce’

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·26 June 2023

Villa eye ‘bargain’ £35m swoop for Liverpool, Spurs target as Emery targets reunion with ‘Rolls Royce’

Aston Villa have reportedly joined Tottenham Hotspur in the race for Villarreal defender Pau Torres and they will try to sign him for £35m.

Villa enjoyed a superb end to the 2022/23 season under Unai Emery. They were around the relegation places when the ex-Arsenal boss arrived but he guided them to a seventh-place finish in the Premier League.

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The Villans will be competing in the Europa Conference League next season so Emery is unsurprisingly looking to improve his squad ahead of their return to Europe.

The Premier League outfit were always going to be linked with Villarreal players this summer after Emery left the La Liga side to take over at Villa Park and they are understood to be targeting Torres.

The centre-back – who helped Villarreal win the Europa League in 2021 – has been consistently linked with Premier League clubs over the past couple of years.

The Spain international could be on the market this summer after Villarreal finished fifth and missed out on a place in the Champions League ahead of next season.

Over the weekend, it was claimed that. £32.7m Emiliano Buendia is their current record signing.

But The Daily Mail are reporting that Villa are actually ‘looking to drive a bargain’ for a player who has a £55m release clause.

They will ‘see if a deal can be done for around £35m’ but Torres is also ‘admired’ by Tottenham and Liverpool. The report adds.

‘Aston Villa are looking to drive a bargain with Villarreal for their ‘Rolls-Royce’ defender Pau Torres. ‘The stylish left-footed centre-back is well known to manager Unai Emery of course but the issue has been the 26-year-old’s buyout clause of 65million euro – or £55.5m by today’s exchange rate. ‘That’s considered too rich by Villa so they are trying to see if a deal can be done around £35m. ‘Fernando Roig Negueroles, son of Villarreal’s owner and de facto ‘big boss’ of the club, has confirmed to Spanish media that the club are at their limit on wages and need to lessen the load. To break even without Champions League football they have to sell. ‘Naturally, they don’t want to undersell a player that has been admired by Tottenham, Liverpool and Bayern Munich, but, pushed on 26-year-old Torres, Negueroles said: “Pau is a special case. He is a very loved boy at the club so to leave it has to be something that improves him, something that is good for everyone.”‘

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