Aston Villa 10 worst signings in the Premier League era ranked: big-name pundit 2nd; Liverpool disaster 6th

Aston Villa have made some tremendous signings in recent years, but for every good one, there have largely been a few bad ones alongside.

Dean Smith and Tim Sherwood have been two of the worst culprits for adding bad players to their Villa squads in recent history, but there have been others, too.

Here, we have looked into the 10 worst signings made at Villa during the Premier League era.

But if you want a look at the sunnier side of life, last week we ranked Villa’s 10 very best.

10. Bjorn Engels

Engels had experience both in the Europa League and the Champions League when Villa paid around £7million for him in 2019 – following promotion back to the Premier League.

But in two years, the Belgian centre-back picked up four injuries totalling essentially an entire year, and he played only 19 games before heading back to his native Belgium.

9. Jota

Villa paid bitter rivals Birmingham £4million and gave them Gary Gardner in their deal to sign Jota in 2019, after a Championship season including three goals and nine assists.

Blues got the last laugh, as the Spanish winger played only 16 games at Villa, with one goal and two assists to his name.

Jota is now the one laughing, as following his retirement just a year after leaving Villa Park, he has become a billionaire, through his agricultural technology company GROINN.

8. Borja Baston

Baston played literally two games for Villa, totalling 16 minutes. Two years later, he scored 22 goals with Real Oviedo in LaLiga 2.

That he was signed on a free transfer is the only reason he isn’t higher on this list.

7. Libor Kozak

Villa paid a reported £5million for Kozak in 2013, with the striker having shown signs of promise with Lazio in the few years prior.

Over the next four seasons, he played a total of 22 games for the Villans.

He scored four goals. Again, he was a striker.

6. Harvey Elliott

How bad must one be in training that the manager refuses to let you on the field at all so he doesn’t have to pay one of the best sides in the country £35million for you?

Indeed, Villa would have had to have paid that to Liverpool had Elliott played 10 games for them in the 2025/26 campaign.

Unai Emery played the midfielder in the first five games he was available for, putting him well on course to become a Villa man permanently. He then let him play only four times games across the entire season so he wouldn’t have to part with a penny.

Elliott played 277 minutes in a full campaign that he was fit for the entirety of.

5. Mbwana Samatta

Upon their return to the Premier League in 2019, Villa made what they thought was a statement signing in Samatta, an £8.5million international striker who’d scored goals in the previous Champions League campaign.

He ended up playing only 16 games, all that season, scoring just twice, as he was way off the level required for the Premier League. Villa sold him for a big loss two years later.

4. Rudy Gestede

Gestede’s signing came in the summer prior to Villa’s relegation to the Championship in 2016, and he was clearly brought in with a view to continuing his from from the previous second-tier season, with Blackburn, in which he’d scored 20 goals – only three players scored more.

Villa paid £6million for the striker and he returned only seven Premier League goals as the side were relegated to the second tier.

Gestede continued to struggle the following year, back in the Championship, scoring only four goals in the first half of the season before Villa sold him to Middlesbrough in January.

3. Joleon Lescott

Lescott is perhaps the player most hated by Villa fans to ever represent club. He signed ahead of the 2015/16 relegation season, like a few others on this list, two years after leaving Manchester City. There, he’d twice won the Premier League and was an important member of the 2011/12 side that did so.

He played 30 games in Villa’s relegation season, and showed no remorse when things weren’t going well.

After a thrashing at the hands of Liverpool, Lescott simply posted a picture of his new Mercedes on Twitter with no context.

He later claimed he had done so by accident, but the majority of Villa’s fans felt he was rubbing their noses in his fame and fortune while he and his team-mates sent their beloved club to the Championship.

2. Micah Richards

Richards was signed from then-two-time Premier League champions Manchester City in 2015, and like Lescott, played a large part in their 2011/12 triumph.

At 27, he should have been in the peak years of his career, and Villa felt they were getting a quality player.

But the right-back was available for just 24 games in what was perhaps the worst season in their history, as they were relegated after 34 games – the third-fastest relegation in a 20-team English top-flight season.

What made it worse was that Richards had signed a four-year contract when he arrived at Villa Park, and so continued to pick up a reported £25,000 per week for the next three years.

He conveniently retired from football once his contract was up in 2019, having essentially stolen a living for the past few years.

1. Bosko Balaban

Signed for almost £6million in 2001, Villa were investigated regarding financial irregularities as a result of the transfer for Balaban – with it claimed £3million of that transfer fee had ‘gone missing.’

The forward ended up playing only 11 games in the two and a half years he was on the books in the Midlands, meaning he cost more than £500,000 per game.

To make matters worse, Balaban went on to become a rather prolific forward in the years after his free transfer exit from Villa Park.