The 10 best Aston Villa transfers in the Premier League era

Aston Villa have started to cement themselves as one of the best sides in the Premier League over the fast few seasons, since Unai Emery came to the helm.

The Spanish manager joined the club in 2022, and since then, they’ve confirmed earned a spot in the Champions League twice, won the Europa League and have added some star talent to the mix.

Only Ron Atkinson and Brian Little had secured a top-four Premier League finish with Villa previously, while the likes of Martin O’Neill, John Gregory and David O’Leary had good spells just outside of it.

Good league finishes obviously come from compiling good squads, and here, we have looked into the 10 best transfers Villa have made in the Premier League.

10. Dion Dublin

Dublin’s £5.75million transfer from Coventry was not the highest at the time, with strikers like Chris Sutton commanding larger fees. For that price, Villa got a striker who bagged over 10 Premier League goals in three separate seasons.

He was not always the most available, but was lethal in front of goal when he was, with Dublin finishing his Villa career with 58 goals and 15 assists in six years.

9. Ezri Konsa

Villa plucked Konsa from then Championship side Brentford for just £12million in summer 2019. During seven years at Villa Park, the centre-back became an England regular, won the Europa League, and cemented himself as one of the best central defenders in England.

He moved to Premier League champions Arsenal for £50million in the summer of 2026, Villa turning a large profit for a player they developed very well and benefitted from some of the best years of his career.

8. Christian Benteke

Villa paid just £7million to Belgian side Genk for Benteke in 2012, and three years later, they sold him to Liverpool for £32.5million.

The striker was an immediate hit at Villa Park, beginning his career with a 19-goal debut Premier League season. Benteke never failed to score 10 goals in his three campaigns with the Villans.

In the next seven seasons in the Premier League away from Villa Park, he only surpassed that figure twice, highlighting how Villa got the best out of him before earning a big profit.

7. Gareth Southgate

Like Konsa, Southgate was an England regular during his time at Villa, making his debut for his nation just a few months after he headed to Villa Park.

The future England manager captained Villa in a period of sustained success, in which they finished both fourth and fifth in his first two campaigns, and never below eighth in his six seasons at the club.

6. Ashley Young

Young joined Villa as a promising yet unfinished winger from Watford in an £8million deal in the winter of his first season in the Premier League. The Midlanders finished 11th in the top flight that season.

The following campaign, Young’s first full season with Villa, he played a large hand in pushing them way up the league, as the club finished sixth, with the winger scoring eight goals and assisting a further 14.

While that was his best season in a Villa shirt, he finished his 247-game spell with 38 goals and 53 assists, rewarded with a transfer to juggernauts Manchester United, for around £16million.

5. Mark Bosnich

The first Australian to play in the Premier League in the very first season after its rebrand, Bosnich had joined on a free transfer after only three matches for Manchester United, which was his first club after departing Sydney United in his native country.

He was therefore largely unknown, but soon became a household name at Villa, with eight clean sheets in his first full league campaign, in which the club finished second in the Premier League.

After 227 games at Villa, Bosnich had 85 clean sheets and two seasons with 10 or more under his belt, and it’s easy to forget he didn’t cost a penny.

4. Morgan Rogers

The strength of Rogers’ time at Villa is boosted by the fee they paid for him plus what they got for him when they left. Villa landed the attacking midfielder for an initial £8million from Championship side Middlesbrough.

He showed promise in his first six months, before exploding the following couple of years, with the first worth 14 goals and 16 assists in the first, and the second 14 goals and 12 assists.

Of those goals was one in the Europa League final, where Villa beat Freiburg 3-0 to lift the trophy.

After just two and a half years as a Villan, Rogers was sold to Chelsea for a whopping £117million in 2026 – the second-highest fee ever paid for a Premier League player at the time.

3. John McGinn

McGinn was signed when Villa were still a Championship side, and helped them back to the Premier League in his first campaign, with six goals and 10 assists. That was after a fee of just £2.75million was paid to sign him from Hibernian.

Eight years later, and McGinn is a regular performer in the Premier League and European competitions with Villa, having become only the second player in the club’s history to lift a European trophy with them in 2025-26.

McGinn has over 300 Villa games under his belt, 41 goals and 49 assists, and is one of the club’s most loyal servants. Not bad for £2.75million.

2. Emi Martinez

Villa signed Arsenal’s back-up goalkeeper Martinez, who’d only ever played for the club 38 times in 10 years, in 2020.

In his first season at Villa, the Argentine kept 15 Premier League clean sheets. He won the World Cup with his nation just over a year later.

During his time at Villa, Martinez racked up 256 appearances, 80 clean sheets, scooped a Europa League medal and was twice named the best goalkeeper on the planet.

Villa have scarcely, if ever, been able to say they’ve had the best in the world in their side, and it all started by signing a goalkeeper who a struggling Arsenal didn’t have enough faith to play.

1. Ollie Watkins

The less said about Watkins‘ exit from Villa the better, as had he not forced a transfer to Saudi Arabia in the summer of 2026, he’d immediately have been cemented as a club legend. The English striker is one of a number of Villans plucked from the Championship in recent years, and has perhaps done the best of all of them.

Parting with what was at the time a club-record, £28million, for Watkins from then-Championship Brentford in 2020, Villa seemingly knew he was going to be special.

In his first season, Watkins scored 14 goals, and never stopped banging them in from then on. The striker’s best season came in 2023-24, when he scored a total of 24 goals along with 15 assists.

He broke countless goalscoring records at Villa, including chasing down Gabby Agbonlahor’s 74-goal Premier League record tally for the club in 2025.

Watkins ended his Villa career with 91 strikes in the English top flight, and found the net 108 times in total.