Aston Villa are paying Birmingham £4million and allowing Gary Gardner to join Blues in a bid to sign Spanish attacker Jota, according to Birmingham Mail reporter Gregg Evans.
The reliable journalist claims via his personal Twitter account that both players will undergo medicals on Friday ahead of a shock Second City swap deal.
Hearing Gardner and around £4m from #avfc in return for Jota from Blues #bcfc. Medicals today. https://t.co/Y9rkFzNmG8
— Gregg Evans (@greggevans40) May 31, 2019
Blues signed Jota, 27, from Dean Smith’s former side Brentford in a club record deal in 2017 when Harry Redknapp was in charge.
According to the Independent, Birmingham paid £6.5million to land the winger, who was handed a four-year deal worth £40,000-a-week.
Good move for Aston Villa?
Jota was superb for Brentford when Smith was in charge at Griffin Park, but the 27-year-old’s form at Birmingham has been nowhere near as good as what was expected when Redknapp snapped him up in a club record deal.
Since then he’s played 75 times in all competitions, but only managed to score eight goals and supply 11 assists.
Those stats are not good enough for someone who was being paid £40,000-a-week to play in an attacking position.
Aston Villa have done well to get Gardner off their books because he’s not good enough for the Premier League, but they appear to be bringing in someone who is also short of what is required in the top-flight.
This is Futbol rating 3/10
Likely to happen?
It seems as though the deal is almost complete and both players should be able to pass their medicals without any great difficulty.
Aston Villa fans would have expected someone a bit better as their first signing of the summer, but it seems as though they are snapping up an underperforming player from their most bitter rivals.
This is Futbol rating 10/10