Aston Villa are set to have a busy summer in the transfer window with players expected to arrive and depart, with one of Unai Emery’s key figure’s future potentially in jeopardy.
After finishing fourth in the Premier League table and earning Champions League qualification, Unai Emery and Monchi will hope to have another successful summer in the transfer window.
The Spanish duo orchestrated the market to their advantage last year, welcoming five new faces to Aston Villa including first-team stars Moussa Diaby and Pau Torres.
While the Champions League will add some funds to Villa’s pot, there will also be some issues in relation to UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules, with the club at risk of breaching Profit and Sustainability Regulations.
READ MORE: What Aston Villa are planning to do amid PSR concerns
As a result, The Athletic detailed that Villa will ‘need to sell to buy’ to acquire more luxury players this summer, which will act as a hindrance to their plans to bolster the squad to compete among Europe’s elite.
With the 2023/24 season now concluded, Emery and Monchi will have a list of decisions to make regarding the club’s finances, with one player now deemed to be one of the likely figures to depart as a result of FFP fears.
Aston Villa could sell Douglas Luiz this summer due to FFP concerns
One player who has consistently generated interest is Douglas Luiz, with journalist John Townley now explaining why he thinks the Brazilian could be the ‘most likely’ sale this summer.
Speaking on the Claret and Blue podcast, the Villa expert ruled out several first-team players from being sold in the transfer window, explaining why Luiz could be offloaded.
“I think it’s [Luiz] the most likely of the sales, we know that there’s a situation and Emery has said some interesting stuff about the PSR situation.
“There’s only so many players that we can sell, we can’t sell Martinez, we can’t sell Watkins, can’t sell Torres or Konsa, that’s why Luiz is towards the top of the list of likely sales.”
Townley went on to express that whilst the prospect of losing Luiz would be a ‘shame’, he has trust in Emery and Monchi to weather the FFP and PSR storms in the summer.
“If Luiz were to depart, which would be frustrating, I still think at the end of the summer we’ll be in a stronger place than how we start. I’m not worried about it, it’s just a shame that we’d have to lose our best technical player.”
Arsenal and Liverpool have been interested in Douglas Luiz
The positive in potentially offloading Luiz is that the Brazilian is not set to be shy of admirers, with Arsenal and Liverpool listed as having interest in the 26-year-old last summer, links that the midfielder commented on, via Sky Sports.
It’s understood that the Gunners still have Villa’s number six ‘very much’ on their list, according to journalist Graeme Bailey, with suitors out there for Luiz to earn Villa profit from if required.
While the Brazil international has been a consistently strong performer at Villa, now could be the optimum time for the club to offload the midfielder, who ended the season in questionable form after his heroics earlier in the campaign.
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