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

Since moving to Aston Villa in the summer, Clement Lenglet, a loanee from the club, has been reduced to a bit-part role, and the club runs the risk of throwing millions away at Villa Park.

This season, Unai Emery’s defense has played well; of the 21 goals his team has let up in the Premier League, nearly half have come from two losses to Liverpool and Newcastle earlier in the season.

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.

Torres was signed from Villarreal in the summer to reunite him with Emery and after Tyrone Mings was ruled out long-term with an ACL injury the new man stepped in immediately and hasn’t looked back since.

Torres’ immediate impression has made the decision to bring in Lenglet from Barcelona on a deadline-day loan deal look like an expensive mistake, as the French international has still yet to play a minute in the Premier League for Villa, after making 26 appearances in the top flight on loan at Tottenham last season.

According to The Sun on 16 November) his £150,000-a-week wages make him the most expensive bench-warmer in the league, ahead of Spurs’ Hugo Lloris on £100k-a-week.

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.

Fabrizio Romano also reported on 15 December that Italian giants AC Milan have also joined the race and have made their intentions to sign him clear to his parent club and there is a chance Lenglet could leave in January.

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.

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