Dean Smith has admitted his delighted after Aston Villa managed to sign Ross Barkley from Chelsea.
There is no doubt that Chelsea will not look to offload a few players over the course of the next few days after spending over £200 million on players that should help the side challenge for trophies once again.
And despite being a big bit-part player over the last few seasons, Barkley has fallen down the pecking order for the Blues, with Mason Mount and Mateo Kovacic now ahead of him in Frank Lampard’s plans, and he has been allowed to depart on loan.
And after a few days of talks, Chelsea announced that Barkley would be making the loan move to Villa until the end of the season, with an option for the Premier League side to potential buy the England midfielder.
After seeing the deal get done, Villa boss Smith has opened up and revealed his delight that a deal for Barkley was done, Smith told the club’s official website: “Capturing a player of Ross’s quality is a real coup for our club and I am certain he will thrive here and improve our team.”
Barkley has great talent but has never fulfilled his potential at Chelsea, so even though he probably wanted to stay, this could be the best move of his career as all expectations will now be lowered.
This is a real coup for Villa, it shows that Chelsea are heading in a different direction under Lampard and will get rid of the players that are not part of the bosses long-term plans.