Aston Villa now have a penchant for spending heavily in the transfer market, and it will only continue to get worse as time goes on and clubs start demanding more money for players.
Since the start of the 2021/22 campaign, the Midlands side have splashed out £33m to sign Emiliano Buendia, £25m on Leon Bailey and just last year, £26m to sign defender Diego Carlos.
Signing quality players on a budget just simply doesn’t happen too often, with arguably the last such buy for Villa being John McGinn, who cost a paltry £2m to sign back in 2018, with his value currently standing at €40m (£35m) according to Football Transfers.
Arguably one of the club’s finest signings in terms of value for money was that of Christian Benteke, who joined in the summer of 2012 for a fee of just £7m and went on to become a sensation in the Premier League.
How did Christian Benteke do at Aston Villa?
The Belgian had scored 20 goals for Genk prior to moving to England with Paul Lambert certainly taking a gamble on the player, however, it paid off handsomely.
In his first season, he was incredible, scoring 19 league goals and while the subsequent two campaigns saw a slight drop-off, scoring ten and then 13 times in the league respectively, they were still solid totals.
Across three seasons, Benteke managed to find the net on 49 occasions while registering 12 assists for the club. It’s no wonder, therefore, that he was dubbed “outstanding” by writer Joel Rabinowitz.
When Liverpool came in with a £32.5m bid for him before the start of the 2015/16 season, it was too hard to turn down but without his goals, the Villa Park outfit were relegated that season.
The fee the club received from the Anfield side was a staggering 364% more than what they had paid for him just three years earlier, and it was evident that they had struck gold over the striker.
He didn’t hit it off at Liverpool, though, scoring just ten goals all campaign. As a result, he was soon off to Crystal Palace, where he enjoyed a more stable run of form and got back to his goal-scoring best.
The “sensational” gem – as lauded by the Telegraph's Alex Shaw – is now plying his trade in the MLS for D.C. United, with it hard to believe that the 45-cap Belgium international is still only 32.
He may have shone briefly for Villa, but they managed to rake in a serious profit on the player and his time at the club won't be forgotten.