Unai Emery agreed to sign £113m forward but he said no

Aston Villa are said to have reached an agreement for Barcelona loanee Joao Felix over the summer but he turned down a return to the Premier League.

The Portuguese star is not wanted at Atletico Madrid and after shipping the forward off to Chelsea for the second half of last season, the Madrid-based club were planning to do the same over the summer – despite paying Benfica £113m to sign him back in 2019.

Aston Villa were one team that wanted Felix but the player only wanted to move to Barcelona and he secured that loan transfer on Deadline Day

“The only team that has wanted him was Monchi and Emery’s Aston Villa,” Atletico Madrid legend Paulo Futre told Cadena Ser, having discussed Felix’s future with the 23-year-old’s agent, Jorge Mendes.

“Joao said ‘no’ when there was an agreement between Atleti and Aston Villa at the beginning of July.”

This proves once again that Aston Villa have a little more to go before competing with the giant clubs in Europe as the Birmingham club also missed out on Marco Asensio and Manuel Ugarte to Paris Saint-Germain.