Danny Wright

Wed 7 December 2022 15:39, UK

January promises to be a massive month for Aston Villa as they aim to allow new manager Unai Emery the chance to put his own mark on the squad he inherited from Steven Gerrard in late October.

In the summer, Steven Gerrard spent a total of £59.4million [The Athletic] on players to add to a squad that finished 14th in the Premier League last season.

However, despite the huge spend, Villa haven’t exactly excelled and if it wasn’t for two massive wins under Emery before the World Cup-enforced break, the West Midlands outfit would have been close to – if not in – the Premier League’s relegation zone.

January will offer Emery the chance to add to the squad where he feels needs the most attention and many Villa fans would agree that adding more of a goal threat would be a high priority.

Despite Danny Ings, Ollie Watkins and Philippe Coutinho being three names who you’d predict to devastate plenty of Premier League defences, they simply haven’t done it as often as fans would have hoped.

That’s probably why Atletico Madrid and Portugal star Joao Felix has reportedly emerged on Villa’s radar ahead of the transfer window re-opening in just a few weeks’ time.

Birmingham Mail journalist Ashley Preece reported via his personal Twitter account on Wednesday morning (7 December) that Atletico are prepared to let Felix, 23, leave the Spanish capital.

It is understood that Villa are aware of the attacker’s situation at the Metropolitano Stadium and “have chucked their hat in the ring”.

While Preece believes that signing Felix would be “unrealistic”, it’s still interesting to see the Villans eyeing up such a highly-rated talent from the world of European football.

Felix joined Atletico from Benfica in 2019 and so far this season, he’s scored four goals and supplied three assists in 18 appearances across all competitions.

Diego Simeone, however, hasn’t exactly started Felix much with the ex-Benfica ace starting just five times in La Liga and only starting half of Atletico’s Champions League matches as they crashed out of the competition in the group stages.

Despite his woes in Madrid, Felix is shining in Qatar with the Portuguese national team.

In his three appearances, he’s contributed to three goals.

He scored in the 3-2 win against Ghana on 24 November and on Tuesday night (6 December) he supplied two assists in the 6-1 battering of Switzerland to reach the quarter-finals.

Cristiano who?

Felix’s performance against Switzerland was somewhat of a masterclass and it kind of proves that he can fill the creative void that currently plagues Aston Villa in the Premier League.

He was played mainly as a left-winger but you can see from the attacker’s heatmap below [WhoScored] that he covered a great deal of the pitch, cutting inside to the middle and even chipping in defensively by moving back into the left-back area.

You can also see from the map below where Felix played his passes. Most of them were in on the left flank but there were also a large number played down the middle.

And the map below shows just the passes that Felix played forward and from a quick glance, you can see that it was the majority.

Goncalo Ramos was the star man for Portugal against Switzerland as the Benfica striker bagged a hat-trick while Cristiano Ronaldo watched on from the bench.

But Ramos’ goalscoring spree wouldn’t have come about if it wasn’t for Felix setting up both his first and third goals of the game.

For Ramos’ first, Felix is seen below picking up the ball from a throw-in on Portugal’s left-wing.

He’s aware of the space he has around him and quickly turns up to face the Switzerland defenders.

One defender is beaten with a tidy touch that also turns into a pass to Ramos.

Ramos then collects the and fires home, beating the Swiss goalkeeper at his near post with a powerful effort.

For Portugual’s fifth of the night and to round off Ramos’ hat-trick, Felix finds himself benefitting from some terrible defending by Switzerland, who’ve inadvertently played him onside.

After collecting the through ball from Bruno Fernandes, Felix makes a split-second decision to hold his run, stop the ball from moving forward and allow in-form striker Ramos to run ahead of him.

It allows Ramos the chance to run in behind the Swiss defence and have a one-on-one chance to round off his hat-trick.

Felix’s creativity, vision and technique are things Aston Villa can benefit from massively.

Coutinho simply isn’t carrying his weight in Emery’s newly-inherited attack whereas Felix has shown for both Atletico and Portugal that despite not being the star man, who’s more than capable of both creating and scoring.

As Preece said, it’s unlikely that Villa will be able to sign the 27-cap Portugal international.

However, he’s a client of Jorge Mendes’ Gestifute agency and none of us really expected to be able to sign Coutinho from Barcelona just over a year ago.

In other Aston Villa news, here are Emery’s backroom staff members at Villa Park.