Aston Villa have hit gold on free signing who's worth more than Maatsen
Aston Villa have hit gold on free signing who's worth more than Maatsen
With Unai Emery and Monchi confident that Aston Villa have navigated around a possible profit and sustainability (PSR) breach, moves are being made to strengthen ahead of the 2024/25 campaign.
Ross Barkley is on the verge of a £5m transfer, returning to Villa Park after spending the 2020/21 season on loan in the Midlands, completing 24 fixtures. Ian Maatsen has been signed from Chelsea for a £37.5m fee in an exciting and purposeful move.
Douglas Luiz will sadly jet off to Turin to sign for Juventus in a necessary sacrifice to align with PSR, though Villa have demonstrated their savviness by including Samuel Iling-Junior and Enzo Barrenechea in the deal, both will sign for the Premier League side.
Several academy talents have also bobbed up toward pastures new but there's one homegrown star whose services must be retained, despite interest in his signature.
Why Jacob Ramsey is attracting interest
The man in question is Jacob Ramsey, who, aged 23, has seen his rise to first-team prominence line up against the upward curve that the Lions have been on over the past five years, returning to the Premier League in 2019 and now stepping into the realm of Europe's elite.
Across all competitions, since being handed his debut in February 2019, during a 2-0 Championship defeat against rivals West Bromwich Albion, Ramsey has completed 122 fixtures, scoring 13 goals and supplying 12 assists.
Versatile and tactically astute, the Englishman is an attractive option for a competitive top-flight team and has been an important figure for his boyhood club, especially over the past three seasons.
While he endured an injury-disrupted 2023/24 campaign, interest has indeed been rife over the past year, with Tottenham Hotspur taking a particular look of admiration toward the attacking midfielder, considering a swoop along with Newcastle United and Bayern Munich back in January, according to David Ornstein.
Now, as per The Times, Spurs have accelerated their interest and actually lodged a £20m offer for Ramsey, including wantaway midfielder Giovani Lo Celso in the package. Ange Postecoglou's side have been eager to exploit Villa's need to appease PSR rules, though this is likely to be achieved without Ramsey's sale.
Aston Villa, indeed, rejected the bid, unwilling to entertain the notion of Ramsey's departure, especially as their valuation of the player stretches far beyond Tottenham's tentative offer.
Jacob Ramsey's 23/24 season in numbers
Due to a series of injury setbacks, Ramsey was limited to just 21 appearances across all competitions last term, scoring once and supplying two assists. He only managed to complete eight starts in the Premier League.
As per Sofascore, he still demonstrated a crisp technical ability and combative nature, making a tackle per game and succeeding with 82% of his passes.
Moreover, as per FBref, he ranks among the top 6% of attacking midfielders and wingers across Europe's top five leagues over the last campaign for blocks and the top 17% for clearances, with his tenacious approach to helping his team evident.
But this is a shadow of the previous campaign, where he was truly instrumental in kicking Emery's regime off, featuring prominently throughout the 2022/23 season and laying the foundation of a skill set that indeed alerted some of the best clubs in the business to his potential.
As you can see, Ramsey - once hailed a "terrific player" by Steven Gerrard, who tipped him for stardom - was at the top of his game as Emery assimilated himself into the Villa Park milieu, and now, despite the vested interests of eager suitors, he must be kept at the club.
Jacob Ramsey's market value in 2024
Ramsey is undoubtedly one of Aston Villa's most exciting homegrown talents in many years. Sure, Jack Grealish is the cream of the crop, but he now plies his trade for Manchester City after being sold for a then-British-record £100m figure in 2021, aged 25. Ramsey could do one better and enjoy the finest days of his career as a Lion.
Ramsey wouldn't be sold for quite so staggering a fee but The Times' aforementioned report claims that Aston Villa would require a ballpark sum of £40m to even consider Ramsey's sale.
Only back in January, when that clutch of top outfits started to swarm, Ramsey was actually touted at £50m, with his market value only dropping given his recent fitness woes - a tidy sum considering he cost the club nothing initially.
The £70k-per-week ace is an extremely marketable asset but the hope will be that he can bring himself back up to pace with an impressive pre-season under Emery, lifting him above the heights that have been reached already and proving himself to be one of the club's staples.
Even so, currently rated at £40m, Ramsey is one of the most high-valued players at the outfit, even more so than Maatsen, who indeed signs for £37.5m and has been lauded for his "characteristics suited to Emery's system" by The Athletic's Jacob Tanswell.
Ramsey, too, is dynamic and blessed with a rise that is synonymous with Villa's over the past several years. Now it's time to rebuff interest in his signature, however tempting it may be, and recognise the value in keeping him over the next several years, allowing him to bloom into the world-beater that he is capable of becoming.
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