Aston Villa had a transfer nightmare with Bjorn Engels | OneFootball

Aston Villa have seen many players make the move to Villa Park since the Midlands club were promoted back to the Premier League at the end of the 2018/19 season.

However, as tends to be the case with most clubs, not every deal that takes place ends up being a successful one.

One prime example of this happening at Villa over the past few years is with defender Bjorn Engels, who joined the Villans back in July 2019 from Stade Reims in a deal worth a reported fee of £9m.

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His debut season at the Midlands club saw the Belgian play in 17 league games and earn himself an underwhelming overall performance rating of 6.61 from WhoScored.

In terms of his defensive output when he was able to get on the pitch, the centre-back only made a combined total of 21 tackles and interceptions, which is lower than the likes of Conor Hourihane and Anwar El Ghazi managed to rack up, as well as making two errors that led to an opponent’s shot at goal, making him a bit of a liability for his side.

The 2020/21 campaign, however, saw the 27-year-old fail to make even one league appearance, spending most of the campaign as an unused substitute, which he has since described as being “condemned to the bench.”

Villa then decided to cut their ties with the defender during the previous summer transfer window by selling him to Royal Antwerp in June, bringing an end to his 100 weeks as a Villan.

Was Bjorn Engels a flop for Villa?

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Given his severe lack of game time, particularly during his second season with the club, it’s safe to say that this was not a very successful transfer deal for anyone involved in it, especially Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris who will have lost a combined total of £12.8m from Engels’ transfer fee and weekly wages of £38k-per-week.

Since returning to play in his home country, the defender seems to have found his feet again after a year of no senior action at Villa Park by earning himself an overall performance rating of 7.13 from the 16 league appearances he’s made for Antwerp according to WhoScored, which currently puts him as their highest-rated player.