Top five best and worst Monchi signings at Aston Villa ranked after dramatic exit

TEAMtalk have taken a deep dive into Monchi’s signings during his time in charge of transfers at Aston Villa, ranking his top five best and worst, after the Spaniard’s dramatic exit from the club.

Unai Emery’s men currently sit 18th in the table after a winless start to the new campaign, drawing three of their five games so far and scoring their first goal of the Premier League season at Sunderland on Sunday.

Monchi arrived at Aston Villa in June 2023 and has overseen five windows during his time as president of football operations, although it’s fair to say that his work has not been particularly appreciated by the Villa Park faithful.

In fairness to the 56-year-old, who worked with Emery at Sevilla, Villa have sold £285million worth of talent since his arrival, in order to comply with PSR.

However, the club’s troubled start to the new season has piled the pressure on Emery, even more so now given that one of his trusted allies has gone.

With all being said and done, we’ve ranked some of those Monchi signings at Villa Park, courtesy of TEAMtalk’s avid Villa follower Daniel Jones.

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Top five best Monchi signings

5. Ian Maatsen

I may lose a few people here, but his talent is undeniable, and I can’t quite understand why he isn’t starting yet.

With his signing, we already have Lucas Digne’s replacement at the club ready to go. He may not play much now, but when he does, he doesn’t play badly – I think he’s just a victim of Emery wanting more experience and seniority within the squad.

Couple all of that with the fact he was essentially a PSR swap with Omari Kellyman, who was 18 at the time and fetched us £20m, I’d say this signing is a good one and he’ll get his time when Digne is eventually moved on.

4. Moussa Diaby

While frustrating that he was sold so quickly, we made a profit on him, and we absolutely don’t get UCL without him.

He played every Premier League game and every Conference League game for us that season and got 18 G/A across the two competitions.

Same as Morgan Rogers, that’s not bad going for a first season in a new league. I would’ve liked for him to stay, but in a world driven by PSR and SCR – goals, assists, UCL qualification and a profit in one season isn’t bad.

3. Pau Torres

He might not be the best defensively but his ability to play out from the back is crucial to our system. He can ping a ball to almost anyone, with the best recent example being Jhon Duran’s worldie of a strike against Bayern Munich.

If we were to sign a couple of top defensive CB’s in the coming windows, I wouldn’t be surprised to see us move to a 3/5 at the back with Pau on the left, so he has fewer defensive duties but can still be that quarterback-type player in our defence.

2. Morgan Rogers

This pick probably doesn’t need much explaining. Total package of £15m for a player who was instrumental to how we played last year with almost everything going through him.

We were laughed at by some for spending that money on someone who was only signed by Middlesbrough six months earlier for £1m, but it’s turned out to be the best value for money signing we’ve made since getting McGinn for £2.5m.

27 goal involvements in his first full Premier League season last year is pretty good going for someone his age, while he has also become an England senior squad regular.

1. Youri Tielemans

One of the best midfielders in the league last year and was a free.

Whenever he doesn’t play, it’s glaringly how badly we miss him in the middle of the pitch.

If we were to ever change the captaincy/vice captaincy while he’s still here, he would absolutely be my first choice – there’s a passion, hunger, and drive in him that we can’t really see in many players aside from John McGinn and Tyrone Mings, who have been here since the Championship days.

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Top five worst Monchi signings

5. Donyell Malen

We’re yet to see much of him and what he can really do, but that’s partly what earns him a space on this list.

£22m for a player who can’t seem to get in the team, whether it’s through favouritism, poor training performances or whatever it could be, isn’t great.

Six games into this season and he’s played a total of 139 minutes, then add in the fact that he was signed in January last year and didn’t even get included in the Champions League squad and that, to me at least, screams money mismanagement when there are positions we desperately needed strengthening at the time of his signing more than the forward positions.

4. Axel Disasi

Now this one might seem harsh, Disasi’s loan was by no means a complete disaster, but the finances involved are what puts him on this list (this will be a common theme for this part of the list).

The rumoured £5m loan fee and wage coverage could’ve been better spent on someone to cover the right-back position that we’ve needed to either upgrade or bring in support for, for a long time now.

3. Clemet Lenglet

Really this could be a copy and paste of Disasi’s reasoning. He wasn’t terrible, he wasn’t great. He got a fair bit of stick while he was here, but I don’t think he was THAT bad.

However, the rumoured £16m we ended up paying over the course of one season for a loan centre back who made 25 appearances across all competitions, that WAS bad.

2. Lewis Dobbin

A victim of PSR swap deals. It feels harsh to put him here knowing he was a pawn in the financial schemes between Villa and Everton, with Tim Iroegbunam going the other way for the same fee.

When you look at what both clubs got from the deal, other than £9m of pure profit each, Everton came out on top.

Iroegbunam has made 26 appearances for them since joining, with 21 being last season and five already this season.

Meanwhile, Dobbin is on his third Championship loan in just over a year… I understand these deals need to happen in the modern game, but when we went and signed Amadou Onana from Everton that same window, did we really need to sign Dobbin too?

1. Nicolo Zaniolo

This was a weird signing. After leaving Roma with what I remember being a fair amount of hype, he made only 12 appearances for Galatasaray.

This one seemed like a signing Monchi made based on the fact he also signed him for Roma.

Zaniolo popped up with a 97th-minute equaliser against Sheffield United which was great for us and keeping our good home form intact, unfortunately that was one of only three goals he scored in 39 appearances… He also assisted none.

VOTE – Who do you think was Monchi’s best signing at Villa?