Assessing the chances of the Aston Villa loan contingent returning

Like last season, a lot of Villa’s star performers are only temporarily attached to the club. Work must be done on seeing which of these loanees’ services can be purchased.

The players in question in this discussion are defenders Tyrone Mings, Axel Tuanzebe and Kortney Hause, winger Anwar El Ghazi and top scorer, forward Tammy Abraham. It’s fair to say that some of these possible deals vary in terms of the price, as well likelihood of a return.

Dean Smith has confirmed in recent days that Aston Villa have options to buy both Hause and El Ghazi, and hold what is called a ‘matching offer clause’ on Mings, which allows Villa to match any bid that comes in for him from another team. Villa would presumably be confident that any bid matched by them will see Mings choose the claret and blue rather than another club, such has been his enjoyable experience with the team this season.

Lets take a look at Villa’s chances of signing the aforementioned players this summer then:

Tyrone Mings:

The clause allowing the club to match another clubs offer was a smart move by Villa, and is the next-best situation to be in if the parent club don’t allow an outright ‘option to buy’ clause. He has proven his fitness to Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe and has also shown what a composed and influential figure he can be. I don’t think he’d come cheap (maybe between £10-20 million) and there is also the possibility he becomes part of Howe’s plans for next season. I’d put this in the moderately unlikely but still possible category.

Axel Tuanzebe:

For someone so young at 21, he’s shown a brilliant maturity in his performances. Man United seem keen on seeing what he’s like in pre-season so if there is a deal to be done, don’t expect it to be completed before August. This one is very unlikely and he’ll be in and around the United first-team, especially if they move on from a central defender or two.

Kortney Hause:

Has not featured an awful lot but he has been very dependable when called upon at left-back and centre-back. I’d say it’s very likely Villa will buy his services in the summer.

Anwar El Ghazi:

Has really improved his consistency levels in the second half of the season and it would be wise for Villa to take up their option-to-buy – which I think is very likely to happen.

Tammy Abraham:

Aston Villa’s top scorer this season and a talismanic figure for the club. This deal is made more complicated by the fact his parent club Chelsea are likely to be unable to sign players this off-season. This means that they have extra motivation to keep Abraham on board, but it also probably drives up his price even further as Chelsea  can’t properly replace him for 12 months. Villa might need to look elsewhere for firepower.